Background
Aiken was born in Barre, Vermont, on March 25, 1934.
Aiken was born in Barre, Vermont, on March 25, 1934.
Her work has been included in many exhibitions of visionary and folk art from the 1980s onwards. She is considered an Outsider artist. In the early 80s Gayleen Aiken was discovered by GRACE, a Vermont grass-roots arts organization.
The "Grass Roots Art and Community Effort"s" exhibition program exhibited her work for the first time in.
GRACE,, a not-for-profit organization founded by artist Don Sunseri in 1975, works to discover, develop and promote the population of elders and other special constituencies in rural Vermont. Jay Craven"s 1985 documentary Gayleen details Gayleen"s life and artworks.
Gayleen Aikens"s works are included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, District of Columbia, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia, Museum of American Folk Art, New York, New York and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Aikens"s art has also been featured in many exhibitions, including at Lincoln Center Gallery, the American Visionary Art Museum, s by Gayleen Aiken(2002) at the Vermont Granite Museum. She was featured in the 2013 Outsider Art Fair.