Kaitlyn Basta (b. 1993, United States) is a painter, sculptor and multimedia installation artist whose practice emphasizes the organic nature and physicality of life and the body, the human condition, and existance's ephemerality. Originally from Minneapolis, MN, Basta earned her BFA in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2016. There she earned several awards, notably the Gross McCleaf Gallery Prize, the Simone C. Titone Drawing Prize, and the Sylvia G. Wexler Memorial Award. She has exhibited in It is Here, It is New, I Am at Pentimenti Gallery, Impossible Archive at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, and founded The Codex Project with partner Mostafa Darwish, exhibiting in its first year. Basta has attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild (Woodstock, NY), and has been selected as artist in resident for ChaNorth Residency in the Summer of 2024 (Pine Plains, NY.)
CV
Born Vermillion, SD, United States 1993
Based in the Twin Cities of MN, United States
EDUCATION & TRAINING
2015 Schuler School of Fine Arts, Baltimore, MD
2012 – 2016 BFA Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts major in Painting, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 Byrdcliffe Reflections group exhibition at Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY, curated by Jen Dragon
2023 Galatea I site-specific installation at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Icehouse, Woodstock, PA
Second Floor group exhibition at Art Works Center, Eagan, MN, curated by Wanda Boreman
2020 Hyper Local: New Works in the Swarthmore College Libraries Collection online group exhibition at Swarthmore College Rare Books
Room in the McCabe Library, Swarthmore, PA, curated by Susan Dreher and Amy McColl
The Codex Project group exhibition and curation at Works on Paper Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, curated by Kaitlyn Basta, Mostafa
Darwish, and Bryan DeProspero
2019 It is Here, It is New, I Am group exhibition at Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, curated by Christine Pfister
2018 Crosscurrents juried group exhibition in the Tuttleman Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA,
juried by Didier Williams, Brooke Davis Anderson, Jodi Throckmorton, and Kaitlin Pomerantz
Visitors site-specific installation in the Broad Street Studio at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA,
curated by CJ Stahl
Impossible Archives juried group exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA, juried and curated
by Brooke Davis Anderson and Judith Thomas
Sixth Sensibilities group show in 6th Floor Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, curated by Brian
Boutwell
2016 115th Annual Student Exhibition in the Annenberg Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Future’s Past juried group exhibition at Gallery 128, Philadelphia, PA, juried by Maureen Drdak
2015 Taxonomy group exhibition at Works on Paper Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, curated by Astrid Bowlby and Bob Cozzolino
It’s the Thought that Counts juried group exhibition at Gallery 128, Philadelphia, PA, juried by Ross Lance Mitchell
2014 Absolute group exhibition at Gallery 128; Philadelphia, PA
Essential Variations juried group exhibition at Gallery 128, Philadelphia, PA, juried by Peter Van Dyck
2013 Academy Artists group exhibition at Artist House Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2024 NYFA Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist Medical Emergency Grant
2024 ChaNorth Residency, August 2024, Pine Plains, NY
2023 Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, September 2023, Woodstock, NY
2019 Vermont Studio Center, September 2019, Johnson, VT
2016 The Gross McCLeaf Gallery Prize for excellence in the style of realism in Memory of Estelle Shane Gross
Simone C. Titone Prize for a graduating student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts who shows promise in the fundamentals
and traditions of classical drawing skills
The Sylvia G. Wexler Memorial Award of the Fellowship Juried Prizes for an outstanding open media piece
Mabel Wilson Woodrow Memorial Award of the Fellowship Juried Prizes for an outstanding work showing in the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts Museum's Gallery 128
2015 Mabel Wilson Woodrow Memorial Award of the Fellowship Juried Prizes for an outstanding work showing in the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts Museum's Gallery 128
2014 Susan MacDowell Eakins Figure Painting Competition First Prize for an outstanding painting from life of the figure in a two-day
department competition, selected by juror Scott Noel
PRESS
2023 Lamour, Mariah, “Episode 8: Mosaics of Consciousness,” Spectral Podcast, 3 May 2023
2020 Dreher, Susan and McColl, Amy, “Hyper Local: New Works in the Swarthmore College Libraries Collection,” Swarthmore College, 2 June
2020
2019 Uncredited author, “It is Here, It is Now, I Am, 29 Jan — 2 Mar 2019 at the Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, United States” Meer
Magazine 26, Feb 2019
COLLECTIONS
2020 Swarthmore College Rare Books Room in the McCabe Library, Swarthmore, PA
RELATED EXPERIENCE
2018 – 2024 Founder, Lead Organizer, and Curator of The Codex Project with Mostafa Darwish, a year-long project and annual exhibition curated
with 20 established, mid-career and emerging artists. Exhibited in partnership with WP Gallery in Philadelphia, PA
2018 Intern conservation of Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers And Ideas Flow by Ree Morton under conservator Mary McGinn for Ree
Morton: The Plant that Heals May Also Poison, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2016 Assistant Curator to the Dot, Dash, Dissolve: Drawn from the Joann Gonzalez Hickey Collection exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Assistant Curator to the Insider Art exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2012 Studio assistant under Megan Rye, Edina, MN
2011-2012 Intern studio assistant under Megan Rye, Edina, MN