Stacy Leigh
(b. 1971) in Long Island, NY
Lives and works in New York City
Stacy Leigh, a self-taught artist, builds up her acrylic and oil paintings over time and finishes them with a glaze in the tradition of Old Master paintings. The color palette in these works contributes to their unique energy. Leigh uses background colors to create undulating waves of tones. Their values gradiate as they pulse farther from the subject, recalling aura photographs. Jewel-like blues and deep maroons create a ghostly and mysterious tenor, and help to create an atmosphere of nowhere. She delicately renders the slightest details with tenderness: networked veins run below the translucent skin; the imprint of a bikini tan-line suggest a sunburn and constellations of freckles sprinkled with care. Each painting suggests a story with no certainty, offering only clues and narrative speculation. Are these figures sexual avatars, or tense young women? These works sit in the uncanny valley of representation, eliciting, at once, empathy and mystery, desirability and emptiness.
Born 1971 in New York, NY
Lives and works in New York City
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021: Forthcoming exhibition, Fortnight Institute, NY
2017: Nerves, Fortnight Institute, New York, NY
2015: More Human Than Human, Castor Gallery, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021: Hunters in the Snow, curated by Fortnight Institute at 303 Gallery, New York, NY
2021: PAPA RAGAZZE!, Nicodim Gallery, LA
2020: 12 Artists, Harper's, New York, NY
2020: Sexual Personae, curated by Alison M. Gingeras, Hotel Drouot, Outsider Art Fair, Paris, FR
2020: 36 Paintings, Haper's Books, East Hampton, NY
2019: Drawn Together Again, The Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY
2018: Angst and Contempt: New Paintings, Pen & Brush, New York, NY
2017: Face Time, Galerie Manque, Brooklyn, NY
2016: Finally, Castor Gallery, New York, NY
2012: First Look, Bernarducci Meisel, New York, NY
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Stacy Leigh's Step Back From Sex Dolls
Anna Zanes, Office, May 22, 2017 -
Right Now Is a Blockbuster Moment in New York for Female Artists
Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, May 19, 2017 -
Stacy Leigh “Nerves” Exhibition At Fortnight Institute, New York
Paige Silveria, Purple, May 9, 2017 -
Real Dolls: Stacy Leigh’s ‘Nerves’ At Fortnight Institute
Jessica Caroline, Filthy Dreams, May 6, 2017
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Hunters in the Snow
Curated by Fortnight Institute at 303 Gallery, NYC 6 Feb - 7 Mar 2021Pieter Bruegel’s Series of the Month depicts January as a solemn time, one in which the struggle for survival is most acute. The month is captured in his painting, Hunters...Read more -
STACY LEIGH
Nerves 3 May - 11 Jun 2017Nerves, Stacy Leigh's first solo exhibition of paintings. Each of the recent portraits on view conjure women who appear to float in the middle distance, ungrounded. Leigh's solitary figures -...Read more
Interview, Office Magazine, 2017
Nerves, artist's book published by Fortnight Institute, 2017
Right Now Is a Blockbuster Moment in New York for Female Artists, Vulture | New York Magazine, Jerry Saltz, May 2017
Stacy Leigh's 'Nerves' At Fortnight Institute | Filthy Dreams, Jessica Caroline, May 2017