Stacy Lynn Waddell (b. 1966, Washington, D.C.) lives and works in North Carolina. Her practice investigates beauty and transformation through experimental and alchemical processes, presenting the view that certain objects, images, and words hold powerful and sacred potential to move and transform us. Using heat and laser technology, accumulation, embossing, interference, and gilding, she creates works that intersect both real and imagined aspects of history and culture. These points of intersection pose important questions related to authorship, beauty, and the persuasive power of nationalistic ideology. Waddell received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007, and her BFA from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, in 1993.
Recent solo exhibitions include Candice Madey, New York, NY (2023); Sala 1, Rome, Italy (2022); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (2022); Candice Madey, New York, NY (2021); and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Richmond, VA (2015); amongst others.
Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco, CA (2024); Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2024); the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN (2023); Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC (2023); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (2022); Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH (2022); and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC (2022); amongst others.
She is the recipient of a Southern Constellations Fellowship (2014); an Art Matters Grant (2012); and a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2010); amongst others. Waddell was in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA (2022-23); Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow, Umbria, Italy (2022); and at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA (2017); amongst others.
Waddell’s work is in the collections of the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill; Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, UK; Brooklyn Museum; College of Wooster Art Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston; The Mint Museum, Charlotte; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Princeton University Art Museum; The Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; amongst other institutional collections.
