(b. 1991, Dawson Creek, BC; Métis)

Haley Bassett is an interdisciplinary artist of Métis and settler descent from Dawson Creek, BC. She was born in 1991 to cattle-rancher parents and now lives and works in Sunset Prairie, BC, in the traditional territory of the Dene, Dane-zaa, and Cree encompassed by Treaty 8 and the Métis Homeland.

She studied painting and drawing at the Florence Academy of Art and has been mentored by Peter von Tiesenhausen, Brendan Tang, and Genevieve Robertson. In 2020, she completed her BFA in Visual Art from Emily Carr University, minoring in Social Practice and Community Engagement. During her studies, she was awarded the BCAC Scholarship twice. She also received the Opus Art Supplies Award, an Honorable Mention for the Art Attack Award, and the BCAC Early Career Development Grant in 2020. She recently completed a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts Creativity and will start her MFA at Emily Carr through their low-residency program in the fall of 2023.

Bassett started as a painter; however, her practice now includes sculpture, installation, beadwork, found objects, and textiles. Her visual work explores how time, place, family histories, and personal traumas converge as formational aspects of the self. Much of Bassett’s work celebrates the culture and landscape of the Peace Region, and she hopes to make a positive impact on northern communities by representing them authentically in her work.

Exhibitions

2023 – Peace Maker