Visual
Works

In 2021, Joy-Jayne Bassey decided she wanted her first art collection. In that process, she found something she had not been looking for: a place to define herself, to be in one accord with herself. She is self-taught. She began, as most honest things begin, out of curiosity and desire.

The early work was experimental. Abstract at first, looking at what was in front of her, trying to make sense of it. Introspective. A mirror held up to different aspects of her life. Then came the pour work: the flexibility of it, the quickness and the thoroughness it required at the same time. The colors decided where they wanted to go.

Then resin. She learned something from resin that stayed: it is untamed, but it requires discipline. It requires you to trust what you know while remaining open to what is yet to come.

It felt like I was exploring erosion. What weathered, seasoned, and the quiet prophecy of emerging out of a weathered season would look like.

Each season of painting said something about a specific season in her life. That led to rust. The discipline of embracing whatever comes, layered textures and lived-in tension, the visual archive of what craftsmen in our body and spirit leave behind, and what remains, and what is still trying to become.

Today, Bassey works from her studio in Kensington, Maryland. She is enrolled in the Master Artist Program at The Compass Atelier, grounding the practice she built by hand in formal study. The journey continues.