Pat Dennis Relevant Art Experience and Background

 

Pat Dennis — Biography and Artistic Career

Early Life & Artistic Beginnings

Pat Dennis is a longtime visual artist who currently resides and works in Baltimore, Maryland. She began her artistic journey in 1974–1975, when she started painting in Nyack, New York — the birthplace and boyhood home of American realist painter Edward Hopper — during a period of artistic experimentation. Early in her development, Dennis worked as an assistant to Sari Dienes at the artist community “The Land” in Stony Point, NY, where influential figures such as Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage would visit. This exposure to experimental art communities helped shape her creative outlook at the outset of her career. Maryland State Arts Council

Education & Influences

Although Dennis holds a degree in mathematics, her artistic education emerged through hands-on experience, mentorships, and immersive environments rather than through formal art school credentials. After her early New York years, she moved to Taos, New Mexico, studying at the Taos School of Fine Arts and forming a close artistic relationship with Native American artist Randy Lee White. The light and landscapes of northern New Mexico, and the influence of artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, remained powerful influences on her painting and artistic sensibility. Maryland State Arts Council

New York Art Scene & Early Exhibitions

In 1979, Dennis returned to New York, where she became an active member of the New York Feminist Art Institute, a collective that engaged women artists from around the world in exploring art’s relationship to mainstream culture. Through this group and adjacent creative networks, she helped found the TAI Gallery on 19th Street in Manhattan. During this time, she exhibited her work and sold pieces at venues such as:

  • TAI Gallery, New York City

  • Nelson Rockefeller Gallery, Manhattan

  • Leger de Main Gallery, Lincoln Center, NYC Maryland State Arts Council

Career in Baltimore

Dennis moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she has been active in the local arts community for decades. Her work continues to evolve, emphasizing subjects such as hearts, horses, women, moons, abstraction, and figurative themes that explore both personal and collective emotional landscapes. Maryland State Arts Council

According to the Maryland State Arts Council directory, Dennis still lives and works in Baltimore City. She remains an active painter whose work reflects deep engagement with artistic truth, expression, and lived experience, rooted in her decades-long practice. Maryland State Arts Council

Artistic Style & Themes

Dennis’s work encompasses both figurative and abstract elements, and her artistic voice has been shaped by cross-continental influences and experiences in experimental art communities, desert landscapes, feminist art movements, and New York’s avant-garde circles. Her paintings often negotiate the tension between personal symbolism and broader cultural narratives, embodying the challenges, beauty, and existential questions of life. Maryland State Arts Council

Online Presence & Gallery Listings

Dennis’s work and biography are featured in the Maryland State Arts Council’s artist directory, where selected paintings and biographical highlights are shared online. Maryland State Arts Council

Additional online gallery listings and portfolio sites (such as ArtSpan) include work attributed to Pat Dennis, exhibiting figurative subjects like hearts, horses, and portraits, further illustrating her long career as a Baltimore-area artist. Dennis Giroux Artspan

Sources & Further Reading

Official Artist and Arts Council Listings


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