Deborah Bassett
Pensacola, FL
I am a multidisciplinary and multi-media artist working with 2D materials, photography, printmaking, performance, words, and sound.
MessageDeborah Bassett is a multidisciplinary and multi-media artist based in Pensacola, Florida. She works with 2D materials, photography, printmaking, and conceptual/performance art. She has studied visual art with professional artists in Boston, MA and Pensacola, FL through group and private instruction and has worked in fine art galleries in Cambridge, MA, Pensacola, FL, and New Orleans, LA. She holds a BA in English, an MA in communication arts and a PhD in communication. As a former research scientist and ethnographer specializing in sociocultural determinants of mental health related to trauma, she finds inspiration in themes of culture, healing, and resilience. She is also inspired by experiencing art in all its forms during her regional and global travels, meeting and interacting with other artists, and simply being alive on our beautiful planet. Her artwork is regularly exhibited in juried shows in galleries in Northwest Florida and has also been featured in print publications. She has recently completed a 26-piece exhibit of linocut prints around the theme of families coping with the Covid-19 pandemic and a related art book that is scheduled for exhibition in 2023. Her current work-in-progress is a conceptual/performance installation around the themes of isolation, community, self-representation, and mental health.
Statement
I am a multidisciplinary and multi-media artist with Indigenous (Muscogee Creek) ancestry who began creating art purposefully after experiencing a life-altering event in 2013–the high-risk birth of my child–which precipitated my early retreat from full-time academic research in the area of social and cultural determinants of health with an emphasis on psychiatric conditions in North American Indigenous populations. As an artist, I draw on these experiences, as well as my experiences as a former journalist and world traveler, to produce work that I intend to be thoughtful, intentional, and accessible using a range of modalities that includes two-dimensional visual art, primarily painting, linocut printmaking, and photography; writing poetry; and composing and producing original electronic music. I view my life as ongoing, collaborative artwork.
I create art to feel alive, here, now: terrified, hopeful, grateful to be living the dream of my ancestors. When I am actively creating, I feel renewed–connected–the same feeling I enjoy when I am immersed in the natural environment. When I am not creating, I experience the distress of the 24-hour news cycle that peddles conflict, division, mindless consumption–leading to a sense of helplessness and despair that so many of us struggle with in this precarious moment in which our co-existence with each other and our biosphere has become increasingly fragile. In a very real sense, creating–and experiencing (e.g., viewing in dedicated spaces)--art is, I believe, essential to preserving and maintaining our optimal mental and physical health, both on an individual and communal level.
My goals as an artist are to understand, bear witness to, and document the lived experience of the 21st century as we face a myriad of ongoing and overlapping social, environmental, and political crises. As the mother of a young child who is also an artist, I am compelled to model for him why this work is necessary, both for ourselves and for the world around us. My artwork is regularly exhibited in juried shows in galleries in Northwest Florida and has also been featured in print publications.
As a research scientist/ethnographer, I was fortunate to learn from Indigenous scholars and elders from around the world and I was mentored in an Indigenous worldview that opened up the possibility of transdisciplinarity, or transcending “conventional” (i.e., colonizer) ideas of disciplinary constrictions. This approach allowed me to create new categories (or embrace ancient ones) by which to conduct my life work, whether then as a research scientist who combined disciplines of psychiatry with social science and arts-based research, or now as a visual artist/poet/photographer/musician/mother/herbalist/Indigenous person/spiritual and physical being.
My recent paintings are colorful, large-scale works of abstract, figurative, portraiture, and still life subject matter using acrylic and oil-based media. My painting style is largely influenced by the post-Impressionists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Frida Kahlo, Henri Matisse, as well as by many contemporary artists whose work I have encountered personally during my travels and visits to art museums, artist studios, and galleries around the world and by the hands-on experience I enjoyed working in contemporary art galleries in Cambridge (MA), New Orleans, and Florida.
Copyright 2023 Deborah Bassett
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