PRESS

"Donna Dennis is a poet of infrastructure. Drawing inspiration from overlooked fragments of vernacular architecture – a subway station, a dingy bungalow, a musty old stairwell – Dennis creates sculptural installations of surprising lyricism…There is a fine line between drawing from a source and copying it. Despite its affection for factual detail, Dennis's work is far from "realistic." In fact, her prototypes are generously deconstructed, her sculptural elements highly formal and steeped in a deep well of personal emotion. Her atmospheric stage sets represent the theater of everyday life, but they also represent metaphorical states of being. In BLUE BRIDGE/red shift these metaphors are quite complex, even contradictory, implying a sense of dislocation and being cast adrift, but also voyage and direction. The work uses its constructivist language to achieve an almost mythic invocation of mortality…What really sets Dennis's work apart is the way it draws its inspiration from the real world, rather than from art theory, and the way it speaks to the heart rather than the intellect. BLUE BRIDGE/red shift…is all the more appealing for its lack of esthetic narcissism. It dares the viewer to interact with it on a variety of levels and repays that attention every step of the way."

George Melrod

Art in America (excerpt) - October 1993. Pages 125-126

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