York College Art Gallery presents

Art for the Body Politic

Aileen Bassis - August 26 - October 4, 2019

Artist Statement

Art for the Body Politic is in dialogue with the notion of a “body politic”, a term used as a metaphor for a nation as a physical being. Is a nation today defined by language, ethnicity or a common vision? Can our body politic stretch to hold all of us in its arms?

Artist Biography

Aileen Bassis is a visual artist and poet living and working in New York City. Her practice includes artist’s books, printmaking and mixed media work on paper. She explores social and political themes running through contemporary society ranging from the Holocaust to income inequality to the legacy of slavery.

Her work has been exhibited widely across the country, including solo exhibits at the University of Pennsylvania Fox Gallery, the Watson Institute at Brown University and Chashama266 in NYC. She’s been awarded artist fellowships to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Vermont Studio center, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, grants from the Queens Council on the Arts and the Puffin Foundation.

She was awarded two residencies in poetry to the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her artist’s books are in many public collections including Lafayette College, Yale University, Wellesley College and Rhode Island School of Design.