Marc Dennis, Superstar, 2024, oil on linen, 70.5 x 55 inches

Marc Dennis
I'm Happy You're Here

January 9 through March 1, 2025
Opens Today, Thursday, January 9, 6–8pm

Harper’s Chelsea 512
512 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm

Harper’s is pleased to announce I’m Happy You’re Here, New York-based artist Marc Dennis’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The presentation features new oil paintings by Dennis and opens January 9, 2025 with a reception attended by the artist.

For the past ten years, Marc Dennis has been examining the memento mori and vanitas works of the Dutch Golden Age. These exquisite still lifes of earthly delicacies were a hallmark of the seventeenth-century Baroque period in the Netherlands. With striking contrast and cadaverous juxtapositions, these paintings emphasize human mortality among living matter and decaying material. Dennis contemporizes this aesthetic tradition, projecting modern inventions and media onto timeless imagery of flora, insects, and wildlife. Across the works that comprise I’m Happy You’re Here, Dennis spectacularizes quotidian portraits of these subjects, uncovering the surreal splendor that burrows amidst the mundane.

Happily Ever After for example, is a bustling reverie of life and light. An opulent floral arrangement blooms from the center of the canvas while industrious bees hover between kaleidoscopic bubbles. These floating orbs are subtle reminders of man-made ingenuity: as the present-day creations glide across the scene, they greet a decadent smattering of fruits as ancient as time itself. Dennis is particularly adept at suspending temporality amidst these enrapturing works. Here, viewers linger on the artist’s seductive palette of technicolor reds, yellows, and blues—an indulgent feast for the eyes.

At times, Dennis composes these intricate still lifes onto circular canvases. A Simple Relationship is one such work that conjures the shape of our planet, but this whimsical universe, replete with bug-eyed frogs, carnivorous plants, and ruby-red fruit, recalls that of wonderland. Dennis embellishes this captivating work with a flurry of celestial symbols: golden stars twinkle around shimmering moons as they soar across a dark nightscape. Weightless bubbles sail about again here. The iridescent globes refract individual worlds, each their own microcosm of wonders.

When it comes to world-building, Dennis knows no bounds. With his curious gaze, the artist zooms in on the idiosyncrasies of natural and artificial environments with hyperrealist precision, orchestrating enthralling symphonies of startling compositions. His exacting hand captures pure beauty in the most unforeseen places—from the charm of adolescent cartoons to the meditative lethargy of listless caterpillars. Giotto’s Fly is a jubilant record of Earth’s abounding spectacles. Dennis is both architect and guide: the artist leads us through an extraordinary labyrinth of uncanny delights.

Marc Dennis (b. 1974, Danvers, MA) received a BFA from Temple University, and an MFA from University of Texas, Austin. Most recently, his work has been the subject of presentations at K Contemporary, Denver (2023); A Hug From the Art World, New York (2023); Gavlak, Los Angeles and Palm Beach (2022 and 2021); and Berkshire Botanical Garden, West Stockbridge, MA (2021). Dennis has participated in recent group exhibitions at Harper’s, East Hampton and Los Angeles (2024 and 2023); Lehman College, Bronx (2024); Col Gallery, San Francisco (2024); Hunter Dunbar Projects, New York (2024); and Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2023). Dennis’s work has been acquired by numerous institutions, including Norton Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Reviews of his work have appeared in Artnews, New York Magazine, and Time Magazine, among other publications. Dennis is based in New York City.

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Detail: Marc Dennis, Superstar, 2024

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