Bio

Dia Bassett has a Masters of the Fine Arts degree (2011) from San Diego State University. She earned her B.A. from Point Loma Nazarene University in 2003. In 2001, she began an eight-month stay in Florence, Italy to study sculpture, archeological conservation, and Italian. She travels regularly to the Netherlands and makes many other trips abroad to countries such as Mexico, England, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, France, Morocco, Switzerland, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia. She also has a background in theatre, which includes her participation in the Eveoke Dance Theatre Performing Group from 2004-2005. Most recently she has exhibited works at the Southwestern College Botanical Garden, the Cuyamaca College Water Conservation Garden, and the University of California San Diego Literature Department. In June 2010, Dia traveled to London using the Isabel Kraft Sculpture Scholarship (SDSU), in order to participate in an Oxford workshop with Lucy Brown and to visit unique textile collections.

Work

Dia's work process involves recycling mundane materials such as textiles, plastic bag, shower curtain, tarp, and neoprene. In recent bodies of art work, she has combined unlikely materials such as plastic, vinyl, felt, second-hand clothing, and rope with traditional fiber techniques to make forms that reference the human form and natural phenomena. Repetitive motions of crocheting or wrapping during her artistic process allow her to create a ritualistic practice. Throughout this ritual process, she utilizes an erratic rendition of fiber techniques to remove herself from craft traditions and to imply evidence of domestic failure. Layering resin, gelatin, rubber, and plaster atop found domestic materials re-woven, re-crocheted, re-sewn, and re-wrapped, she builds forms that intermingle the abstract with the anthropomorphic. In suggesting the human, female form, she references women throughout history beginning with early depictions such as the Classical nude and leading to the Baroque portrait. While the human form signifies our emotional nature, biomorphic organic forms relate to our instinctual animalistic side. The resulting work leads her to ask questions about women and about herself.