Denise Iris

Denise Iris makes videos, installations and photographs that blur the boundaries between reality and the imagination, defamiliarizing the recognizable contours of our world. Her work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art in NY, on PBS, and at festivals worldwide, winning a Silver Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Critics’ Prize at the Dakino International Film Festival, and a Director’s Choice Award at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival. It is held in the permanent collections of universities such as Harvard, University of Colorado Boulder, Colgate, and University of Massachusetts Boston. Recent shows include the Personal Cinema Series at UC Boulder, Microscope Gallery, Bard College, and Dumbo Arts Festival.

Denise holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Brown. She attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and studied critical theory at the Centre Odéon d’Etudes Critiques in Paris. Grants and fellowships include the MacDowell Colony, Sloan Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Wexner Center for the Arts, NY State Council on the Arts (twice), NY Foundation for the Arts (3 times), Blue Mountain Center, Djerassi, and the Rockefeller Foundation Pocantico Residency. Denise has taught at Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and Parsons. Raised in Romania, she lives in New York.