Bio of Alyson DENNY
Alyson Denny has recently completed her fourth series of abstract color photographs, The Six-Circle Variations. About The Six-Circle Variations, The New York Times said, “These works are steeped in the pleasures of intuitive, hands on image-making.” To shoot this series she built on the studio techniques of reflecting, refracting and mixing light she originally developed for The Horizontal Line Series, about which The New Yorker said “[Alyson Denny’s] abstract Horizontal Line Series C-prints swim with pure color.”
Ms. Denny’s other two series of abstract photographs were shot in situ. The Jellyfish Pictures are color photographs of jellyfish washed up on the shore in Amagansett, NY. The East Hampton Star called these photos “rich and strange. The jellyfish refract light in mercury-like blobs and crystalline shards, and read as pure abstraction.”
For The Seaweed Pictures she further developed the ideas begun with The Jellyfish Pictures, this time with the camera aimed at seaweed. About this work The East Hampton Star said “the seaweed images are vibrantly hued in deep reds, ochers, blues, and gold.”
Her photographs have been shown regularly at the Alan Klotz Gallery, NYC and the Pamela Williams Gallery, Amagansett, NY.
Ms. Denny brings to her photography a background in filmmaking as well as in theatrical lighting and projections. Her documentary films 'Total Baby' (1993, Prod./Dir./Cinematographer), was called "wry" (Village Voice), "fun" (Newsday), and "irresistible" (Boston Phoenix), and 'Girltalk' (1987, Assoc. Dir. /Cinematographer/Editor), was "one of the most talked about films in PBS annals" (Newsweek), both received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, were widely shown in theatres and on television, and are in over fifty public and institutional collections.
Ms. Denny has guest-lectured on filmmaking at Harvard, the New School, the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of Visual Arts and Yale. Her theatrical work was primarily done at the American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA. Artists with whom she worked include JoAnne Akalaitis, Robert Brustein, Doug Fitch, Peter Sellars, James Turrell and Robert Wilson.
Ms. Denny studied physics, math and filmmaking at Harvard, graduating with honors in 1985. Her thesis, a fiction film entitled Saturday Afternoon, was awarded summa cum laude and the Hoopes Prize for outstanding undergraduate thesis work.
Ms. Denny’s other two series of abstract photographs were shot in situ. The Jellyfish Pictures are color photographs of jellyfish washed up on the shore in Amagansett, NY. The East Hampton Star called these photos “rich and strange. The jellyfish refract light in mercury-like blobs and crystalline shards, and read as pure abstraction.”
For The Seaweed Pictures she further developed the ideas begun with The Jellyfish Pictures, this time with the camera aimed at seaweed. About this work The East Hampton Star said “the seaweed images are vibrantly hued in deep reds, ochers, blues, and gold.”
Her photographs have been shown regularly at the Alan Klotz Gallery, NYC and the Pamela Williams Gallery, Amagansett, NY.
Ms. Denny brings to her photography a background in filmmaking as well as in theatrical lighting and projections. Her documentary films 'Total Baby' (1993, Prod./Dir./Cinematographer), was called "wry" (Village Voice), "fun" (Newsday), and "irresistible" (Boston Phoenix), and 'Girltalk' (1987, Assoc. Dir. /Cinematographer/Editor), was "one of the most talked about films in PBS annals" (Newsweek), both received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, were widely shown in theatres and on television, and are in over fifty public and institutional collections.
Ms. Denny has guest-lectured on filmmaking at Harvard, the New School, the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of Visual Arts and Yale. Her theatrical work was primarily done at the American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA. Artists with whom she worked include JoAnne Akalaitis, Robert Brustein, Doug Fitch, Peter Sellars, James Turrell and Robert Wilson.
Ms. Denny studied physics, math and filmmaking at Harvard, graduating with honors in 1985. Her thesis, a fiction film entitled Saturday Afternoon, was awarded summa cum laude and the Hoopes Prize for outstanding undergraduate thesis work.