Stacie McCormick is a British-American abstract painter based in London, with a practice spanning over four decades.
Her work is defined by a sustained investigation into gesture as an embodied form of knowledge. Developed through more than 40 years of disciplined mark-making and rooted in a lifelong engagement with calligraphy, her paintings emerge through a process that privileges instinct over control—where the body leads and the work unfolds in real time.
McCormick’s paintings operate as fields of experience rather than images. Built through layered movements, erasures, and accumulations, they hold the trace of time and attention, resisting immediacy and demanding physical engagement. In an age dominated by accelerated image consumption, her work insists on duration, presence, and the irreducibility of lived experience.
Within these works, multiple states coexist—tension and release, rupture and continuity, expansion and restraint—held in dynamic equilibrium. Her paintings do not resolve; they remain open, active, and in flux.
Recent bodies of work, including Storm’s Coming, mark a critical point in her practice. Developed in the aftermath of profound personal loss, the series confronts the simultaneity of opposing conditions—grief and vitality, collapse and renewal—articulated through a highly controlled yet instinctive gestural language.
Alongside her studio practice, McCormick has established herself as a significant force in artist-led infrastructure. She is the Founder and Director of Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, and the Founder of Fair Art Fair, a platform advancing equitable models for artists. She served as the first practising artist Chair of a-n The Artists Information Company, leading a major organisational transformation and advocating nationally for artists’ rights and conditions.
McCormick lives and works in London.
Stacie has a remarkable commitment to fellow artists, having sponsored over 600 artists and curators by providing space and time through residency and exhibition programmes.
Stacie McCormick, In the studio
EXHIBITIONS
2024
Solo
Infinite - New York - Sutton Tower Exhibition & Residency
Eclatant - Secteur | Privé London
2020
Onslaught Undone, Meno Parkas, Kaunas, LIT (duo)
2019
and this, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (solo)
Karen Tronel, London, UK
We Sing the Body Electric, Gallery 46, London UK
Auto-Destruct, Cross Lane Projects, Kendal, UK
We can only have fun on certain days, Warbling x Stour Space, London, UK
The Fight, Kunstgenerator, Geneva, CH
Void (Empire II), Venice, IT
Miniscule II, Biennale Venice, Venice, IT
Minimal Compact, Museo MACO, Oaxaca, MX
2018
Onslaught Undone, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK
Protocol, Q-Park Cavendish Square, London
Little Paintings Large, Taylor Howes, London, UK (solo)
Empire II, Paris Le 100 ECS, Paris, FR
We Could be Heroes, Martha Parsey Project Space, Cologne, DE
Empire II, Haus Gallery, Tallinn, EE
One for One, The Concept Space Gallery, London, UK
Hospital Rooms 20 x 20, Griffin Gallery, London, UK
Auto-Destruct, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK
MAKING PAINTING, Freie Internationale Akademie, Amorbach, DE
Cloud Concrete, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK
2017
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
Crash, Frieze Alternative Show, London, UK
PIY Paint Lounge Arch 12, Bohemia Place, London, UK
In Search of Paintings, Meno Parkas, Kaunas, LIT (solo)
Empire II, Biennale Venice, Venice Castello 30122, Venice, IT
Chinese Open ‘Year of the Rooster’, Leicester Square, London, UK
Beyond, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK
EDUCATION
2001
Master of Arts, City & Guilds of London Art School, London, UK
1984
Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Alabama, US
AS CURATOR
2019
Man(u)fractured, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Shinuk Suh)
Radical Residency® IV, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Ana Barriga, Charles Laib Bitton, Luke Chiswell, Alexia Laferté Coutu, Juls Gabs, Luca Grimaldi, Sooim Jeong, Anna Lytridou, Daniel Solomons, Karen Thomas)
Adjacent Directly, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Amy Cutler, Lewis Davidson, Rob Kesseler, Kristina Pulejkova, Vivien Sansour, Daniel Silva, Sanne Vaassen)
Surplus to Purpose, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Sanne Vaassen)
*89, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (ubada muti)
Radical Residency® III, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Tobias Becker, Sam Carvosso, Sooyoung Chung, Juliette Dominati, Géraldine Honauer, Hun Kyu Kim, Jean-Baptiste Lagadec, Henry Tyrrell, Lucille Uhlrich, Poppy Whatmore)
Auto-Destruct, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, Crosslane Projects, Cumbria, UK (Steve Carr, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Cedric Christie, Jean Luc Dubin, Lee Holden, Simon Liddiment, Stacie McCormick, Graeme Miller, Elena Montesinos, Owen Oppenheimer, Ben Philpott, Jay Price, Pascal Rousson, Rebecca Scott, Gavin Turk, Tisna Westerhof)
2018
Fuse of Air, This Body, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Bryan Reedy)
Line in Sand, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Bianca Barandun)
Rogue Parsley, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, UK (Thomas Garnon)
Auto-Destruct, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Steve Carr, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Cedric Christie, Jean Luc Dubin, Lee Holden, Simon Liddiment, Stacie McCormick, Graeme Miller, Elena Montesinos, Owen Oppenheimer, Ben Philpott, Jay Price, Pascal Rousson, Rebecca Scott, Gavin Turk and Tisna Westerhof)
Radical Residency® I, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Javier Torras Casas, Yu Ting Ong, Evy Jokhova, Eugene Macki, Paula Baader, Nemo Nonnenmacher, Ant Hamlyn, Julia Court and Diane Chappalley)
Ripen at Home, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Emma Corrall)
2017
Cloud Concrete, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Barry Reigate, Anna Reading, Tim Garwood, Tess Williams, Stacie McCormick and Mike Ballard)
Rubber Chink-Clink Adieu, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Michal Raz, Gabriela Giroletti, Henry Tyrrell, Bryan Reedy and Cecilia Charlton)
Future Absurdities, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Thomas Langley)
Gross Domestic Product, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Hermione Allsopp)
Inarticulate Landscapes, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Kate Fahey, Benedicte Emsens, Kate Boucher)
The Space is Occupied, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London, UK (Rebecca Byrne, Wendy Saunders)