Elaine Stocki

Elaine Stocki is renowned for her paintings and photographs, as well as abstract feminist art.

Biography of Elaine Stocki

Elaine Stocki was born in 1979 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba. She furthered her education with a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 2009.

Currently, she lives and works in Los Angeles, California, where she also teaches art at Fullerton University. Stocki's work has been widely exhibited in notable galleries and museums across North America and Europe, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto in Toronto, Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Cadet Capela in Paris, Night Gallery in Los Angeles, Thomas Erben Gallery in New York, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York.

Her work has been reviewed in prominent publications such as Border Crossings Magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. In 2019, Stocki's first monograph was published by SKIRA Paris to coincide with a ten-year survey of her work at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. 

Elaine Stocki's art is part of the permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is also a 2023–24 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program Awardee in New York. 

Elaine Stocki Art Style

While she is primarily known for her photography, Stocki's paintings have also gained recognition. Her photographs have been characterized as "little retro gems" that evoke nostalgia while also possessing a raw, street photography quality. Stocki prints her images on silver gelatin and tints them by hand. The retro effect is achieved through her creative processes, which include incorporating film sprocket holes and manually cutting and pasting layers.

The street photography quality of her work is frequently linked to the concept of the "indecisive moment," a term famously coined by photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Stocki has also expressed disdain for the ironic, postmodern photography of the 1990s.