“It all kind of started with this idea about edibles,” said Stacy Lynn Waddell via video call from her North Carolina base, describing her newest body of work set to go on view with Rebecca Camacho Presents at FOG Design+Art 2025. “The first time I went out West, I went to San Francisco and of course, when one goes out West and you go to San Francisco, you go to a weed shop or whatever they call them.”
Stacy Lynn Waddell. © Marco Giugliarelli for Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2022).
Cannabis-infused foods and candies have become an increasingly popular and widespread commodity, but, for Waddell, these products presented a potent starting point for a new line of artistic inquiry. “Edibles,” as the presentation within FOG Focus is aptly titled, features 10 works on paper, each featuring a plant specimen rendered in pastiglia, or paste work, and covered in 22-karat gold leaf, and marks Waddell’s first solo presentation with Camacho.
“I’ve been interested in Stacy’s unique and thoughtful practice for years, admiring her commitment to historical techniques and how her luminous, elegant surfaces belie her use of challenging, frequently unforgiving materials,” Camacho said. “After participating in a group exhibition at the gallery last summer, this solo FOG booth is a great opportunity to share Stacy’s work with a much larger audience within the Bay Area as well as national and international audiences. I am excited and proud to debut Stacy’s newest works at the fair.”
Installation view of “Stacy Lynn Waddell: Edibles” at FOG Design+Art 2025. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents.
Gilding with precious metals is an essential technique within Waddell’s practice, which was on full display in her last solo show, “light takes time to reach us,” at Candice Madey, New York, in 2023 (her third solo with Candice Madey is planned for this September). Here, works included compositions crafted with gold leaf but also variegated metal leaf, silver leaf, and Japanese-colored silver leaf.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
In “Edibles,” however, all 10 pieces are overlain exclusively with gold, making their low-relief images difficult to discern from a single vantage point, prompting the viewer to move around the piece to see all the different details depending on the light.
“My work tends to be a quieter read, I am asking you [the viewer] to look at something that is a monochrome, also a metallic monochrome, and engage with something that isn’t necessarily easy to engage with. The graphic capability of the work itself is a slow read, and it’s layered between other stuff. You’re negotiating light and shadow, depending on the space the work is shown in.”
Stacy Lynn Waddell, (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
Complementing this visual experience is the specificity of the work’s support, a “leathery” type of paper handmade in India with a distinctive, textural surface and irregular edges, which lends it a sense of objecthood in and of itself. Working in pastiglia, using paste or other mediums to build up the surface, certainly imbues Waddell’s work with a sculptural quality but simultaneously allows her to engage with a type of drawing.
“There’s something about being able to use words related to construction and building when thinking about drawing… it’s the way I think about making a drawing,” Waddell explained. “I couldn’t make paintings like wet media onto paper or canvas. It has to be mediated with drawing. Everything I do has to be a drawn painting, not a painted painting.”
Stacy Lynn Waddell, (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
Across the series of golden pastiglia drawings, both everyday and rare plants make appearances, and their edibility ranges from delicious to medicinal to toxic, with the inspirations behind each varying broadly. “Some have very particular personal stories behind them, like the blackberry bush that I grew up with at my grandparent’s property that became this giant, almost mythological being in and of itself,” said Waddell. “It was huge and unruly, and every year I would wait for those first ripe berries.” Others capture the artist’s interest through their associated lore. Pokeweed, for instance, is incredibly toxic but has historically been used as a dye—one known, however, to fade quickly—and in traditional herbalism.
Other works feature wild strawberries, opium poppy, bunch flowered narcissus, lemon daylily, cherry tree, sweet violet, tulip, and orchid (these last two species appear together in one work, in a variation on the theme). The way they are arranged in their respective compositions echoes the tradition of botanical drawings, which Waddell cites as a reference point.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
The history of botanical drawings stretches back several thousand years, with the intrinsic purpose of documenting the details of various plants but also identifying their uses and classifying them as medicinal, edible, or poisonous. In more recent history, specifically in American history, it was a tool of exploration and colonization. Today, in light of climate change, environmental disasters, and habitat loss, the botanical drawing may very well be the only extant record of any number of plant species.
Connecting back to Waddell’s initial inspiration of edibles in California, the works also tap into the history and heritage of agriculture in the state, and how the Central Valley operates as a source of sustenance due to its extremely long growing season.
The gold leaf placed over the top of these drawings adds yet another layer of complexity to these works, evoking icon painting, religious images that were popular in the 6th as well as 13th through 17th centuries, which frequently depict portraits of figures and scenes from holy texts against a ground of gold leaf. These paneled works operated as a focus point for parishioners, and, similarly, Waddell’s works invite focused attention from viewers—both in how the compositions are optically perceived as well as reflection on and contemplation of what they depict.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
The intended viewing experience of Waddell’s work in many ways parallels her working practice, which, Waddell admits, is rather gradual and time-consuming. “I work really slowly, and I have things I want to really experiment and play with.” Part of this prolonged approach is in no small part due to an interest in things that have had some time to settle, and tracing reference points between things that might otherwise be incongruous.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, detail of (2024). Photo: Kunning Huang. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco.
“I need things that have a bit of a patina, to have a bit of age on it,” Waddell said. “It’s about connecting myself to history or rerouting what I want to make through the historical lens. It gives the work weight, but it also gives people a whole lot to bring with them too. You’re standing in 2025, looking at a work that was made at the end of 2024 with a process from the Renaissance, and then you’re bringing all of your experiences as a human being, your preferences art as a collector, your interests as a curator or gallerist. That’s super interesting to me.”
The angles, both physically and intellectually, at which Waddell’s new work can be approached are numerous yet subtle. Despite their glittering opulence, their presence is decidedly quiet, and contemplative. Against the backdrop of the fair’s (and life’s) clamor and commotion, they invite viewers to take pause, offering a moment of respite and reflection.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
