Collection: Brian David Dennis

Bio

Brian David Dennis was born in 1959, raised in a home with movable walls designed by his father, an aspiring artist. The fluidity of the modular arrangement captured Brian’s imagination. His mother, a kindergarten teacher encouraged Brian’s constant building.

As a student Brian considered following his passion for stage design, but sought the more personal expression of fine arts. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy and settled into mixed media. He later began to explore installation using the exhibition location as an essential part of the piece.

A life long resident of Pennsylvania, Brian has been in Philadelphia since 1984 with his life partner Keith Breitfeller. He began exhibiting with Vox Populi and remained an active member for 15 years. He has held solo exhibits at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Sande Webster Gallery, Fleisher Challenge and recently in Krems, Austria. He has been granted an Independence Foundation Fellowship and other awards.

Statement

"I am a multimedia visual artist. My body of work ranges from large installations to small collages. From immersive to intimate, I seek to extrude the extraordinary from the common. I’ve constructed soaring towers of coffee stirrers and present lost worlds discovered in minute street trash. My imagination dives into the everyday world to manifest wondrous realms.

Much as I rummage for art materials, I also plunder the art canon for influences. The project and the process dictate his sources. My tormented figures refer to Francis Bacon. The installations are direct descendants of Josef Svoboda’s stage designs. Minimalist edicts temper my spontaneous chaos. Central to my aesthetic concerns are always balance, tension, and surface. “The piece is the subject, not the content.”

There is a solid autobiographical thread running through my lifelong body of work. The narrative details in earlier projects were shrouded in diffusing layers. With a mature understanding, the confusion and conflict of my past have given way to peace. My work’s always raw and emotive nature is now infused with a powerful honesty.

As an artist, I crave the sweet moments while working when I slip beneath my conscious control. While making art, I seek to lose awareness of the outside world and myself. I am free when working from within, untethered to expectation and thought, even if what comes to the surface is the worst experience of my life."

To find out more about Brian David Dennis' work visit InLiquid and visit his Square profile.