Artist Bio
Tirtzah Bassel (b. 1979, Boston, MA) is a Brooklyn-based artist working in painting and site-responsive installation. She received her MFA from Boston University. Bassel's work explores how individuals and communities navigate systems of power, belief and belonging, drawing on observation, mythology, religious imagery and art history. Her paintings and large-scale duct-tape installations move between contemporary public spaces and inherited cultural narratives, examining rituals of waiting, movement, touch, surveillance and care. Through vivid colour, dynamic mark-making and subtle humour, she reimagines familiar stories and social structures. Her ongoing series Canon in Drag revisits iconic artworks through altered narratives and shifts in perspective, imagining alternative forms of power, pleasure and agency.
Bassel has presented solo and site-responsive projects at A.I.R. Gallery, FOR-SITE Foundation, BRIC Arts Media House, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, SLAG&RX (New York, Paris), Galerie Thomas Fuchs (Stuttgart), Ortega y Gasset and Open Source Gallery. Group exhibitions include PLATFORM (David Zwirner Partnership), Natasha Arselan Gallery (London), Martha’s Contemporary (Austin TX) and Kunstverein Viernheim (Germany). A forthcoming group exhibition at Sheldon Museum of Art is scheduled for 2027 (forthcoming).
Her work has been featured in ARTNews, Frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, BBC Radio 4: Front Row, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, The Boston Globe, KQED, San Francisco Chronicle, Lilith Magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera English, and Whitehot Magazine.
Bassel holds an MFA from Boston University, and is represented by SLAG&RX (New York) and Galerie Thomas Fuchs (Stuttgart).
C.V. | Instagram | tirtzahbassel[at]gmail.com 
Artist Statement
I make figurative paintings and site-responsive installations that explore how individuals and communities navigate systems of power, belief and belonging.
Drawing on direct observation, mythology, religious imagery and art history, I create works that move between contemporary public spaces and inherited cultural narratives. Airports, libraries, supermarkets, waiting rooms and places of worship appear alongside witches, sacred stories and reimagined canonical artworks. I am interested in the rituals people perform within these spaces: waiting, sweeping, searching, caring, gathering, complying and resisting. These everyday actions become a way of examining larger questions about authority, vulnerability, desire, freedom and collective behavior.
Many of my works begin with observation. I sketch people moving through the structures that organize contemporary life, from airport security checkpoints and shopping queues to public libraries and civic spaces. Alongside painting, I create site-responsive installations, including large-scale works constructed directly onto walls using duct tape. These interventions transform architectural space into immersive drawings that trace movement, surveillance, touch and waiting, exploring how public environments shape human experience.
Elsewhere, I return to myths, religious narratives and art history, reworking familiar stories through altered perspectives and unexpected points of entry. In my ongoing series Canon in Drag, iconic artworks become sites for imagining alternative forms of power, pleasure and agency.
Humour, curiosity and playfulness are central to my approach. Through vivid color, dynamic mark-making and spatial intervention, I explore the thresholds between sacred and secular life, public and private experience, individual desire and collective expectation. Whether depicting travellers navigating systems of control, figures inhabiting reimagined myths, or witches moving between worlds, my work invites viewers to reconsider the structures, stories and rituals that shape everyday life.