09/08/2026
Thrilled to have Stacy Lynn Waddell ‘Stranger’ now on view in the gallery’s Project Room.
Debuting the first two works from a new series, ‘Stranger’ takes inspiration from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay ‘Stranger in the Village,’ in which the author likened his experience as the sole Black man in a secluded, all-white Swiss Alpine village to being treated as a strange object rather than a person. Using traditional gilding and sculptural drawing practices, Waddell teases out themes threading through Baldwin’s essay, explicating and investigating the connectivity between beauty, provocation, unfamiliarity and fear.
Frequently inspired by historical, literary and cultural figures – launch points of past series include Audre Lorde, Winslow Homer’s watercolor ‘After the Hurricane, Bahamas,’ and John James Audubon’s book ‘Birds of America’ – Waddell addresses the intersection of popular culture and history with issues related to visibility, desire, and power; considering the human experience and its historical lineage via our relationship to the natural world.
Rooted in Baldwin’s examination of persistence and humanity in the face of the oft inhumane, Waddell’s ‘Stranger’ series considers otherness, sexuality, identity, and the awe of beauty tempered by trepidation of the unknown.
Using floral still life as a metaphor for the human body, illuminating sensual and provocative forms in the pedigree of Robert Mapplethorpe or Georgia O’Keefe, Waddell creates her sculptural drawings with handmade paper and pastiglia, a technique developed during the Renaissance in Italy to create low relief decoration. Employing this historical craft, Waddell conjures botanicals associated with beauty, elegance and refined feminine mystique and fossilizes them in 22-karat gold. The conversation is both singular and universal, illuminating Waddell’s personal ‘Stranger’ experiences as well as engaging greater questions far beyond her physical breadth.
Measuring 4 feet in diameter, the pieces on view introduce Waddell’s largest and most intricate gilded works on paper to date.
Stacy Lynn Waddell Rebecca Camacho Presents
