Bio
Evan Bissell’s work is a project-based practice of creating structures of collaborative dialogue and expressions of personal and community truths. Working with groups of people, Bissell facilitates educational, auto-ethnographic and contemplative processes of interviews, research, listening, writing and art-making. Resulting from these processes are collaboratively designed, larger-than-life portraits, multi-media participatory exhibitions and public installations. Project themes have ranged from the impact of incarceration on families to imagination as a practice of transformation for youth. Through projects, Bissell has produced over 50 portraits, dozens of free workshops, audio-documentation, celebrations, original give-away timelines, maps and resource guides.
Bissell has had exhibitions on Alcatraz Island, Intersection for the Arts and SOMArts Cultural Center, created a hybrid set/installation for the premiere of Chinaka Hodge’s play Mirrors in Every Corner as well as participating in shows at Southern Exposure and Guerrero Gallery. He is a two-time recipient of the Individual Artist Commission award through the city of San Francisco’s Cultural Equity Grants program, and has received funding from Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure program, Puffin Foundation, LEF and the California Arts Council, among others. He was a 2010 Eureka Fellowship Nominee. He has taught art and led public projects in schools (k-12) throughout the Bay Area. Currently Bissell co-teaches Teenalive, a class at El Cerrito High School in partnership with Community Works, that combines curriculum addressing masculinity, communication skills and violence with art.
Bissell is a 2005 graduate of Wesleyan University with a double major in Painting and American Studies with an Ethnic Studies concentration. He was trained in 2011 as a circle keeper by Sujatha Baliga.
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