In Conversation
Marc Dennis: The Invisible Foreground
The painter who puts you inside the picture
By Gabriel Dean Roberts ·
At The Armory Show in New York, we sat down with Marc Dennis, the painter whose vases, mirrors and bubbles quietly put the viewer into the scene. He talked about Velázquez and Caravaggio, Dutch vanitas painting "on steroids," a courtroom that changed his life, and the dead bird that made him believe he could paint:
Las Meninas and the Invisible Foreground
Miami Art JournalThe first time I met Marc was at the Art Students League on 57th Street. He's got a bunch of protégés there, and all the work is incredible. My daughter, Gwyneth and I were talking about why your work is special. I looked over your history, at least what I could piece together. But the thing that really clicked for me was Las Meninas. I only knew about it because in grad school I studied Michel Foucault, I think in The Order of Things. Velázquez painted Las Meninas, the royal household, and he paints himself into the scene at his easel, with the king and queen reflected in a mirror at the back. And Marc has a painting where he reproduces Las Meninas, except he's put one of his big vases of flowers in the foreground, with his own reflection in the vase.
Marc DennisRight. In the original, the king and queen are in the mirror. I replaced them with two torah scrolls, because I turned it into a temple. I took over the Spanish Catholic space and made it a temple. And I called it "Las Bat Mitzvah."
Miami Art JournalThat's awesome.
Marc DennisIt's one of the most puzzling paintings in the world, if not the most. It's sort of my muse. Caravaggio’s work is another muse. And I'll tell you something. Caravaggio, no one knows this, I don't think they do - Caravaggio painted himself reflected in the painting of the young Bacchus.
Miami Art JournalReally? The sickly one was him?
Marc DennisNo. It’s the young handsome Bacchus painting. A microscopic, hidden self-portrait of Caravaggio is reflected in the liquid-filled wine carafe. Very few people know this. Historians know it. And that's before Velázquez. It may have been one of the first reflections of an artist in his work.
Miami Art JournalI love Caravaggio. The chiaroscuro. (speaking to Gwyneth) What's great is that not only does Marc do what he does in a perfect signature, he's also pointing to all of the old masters. That's exactly what a master's thesis is: here's the argument everyone has made, and here's my contribution. That's what I loved when I saw Las Meninas. It connected on ten different layers at once.
Marc DennisIt’s probably the most wondered-about, talked-about painting.
Miami Art JournalI think the first official show of yours I went to was "Three Jews Walk into a Bar."
Marc DennisYes. Exactly what it's called.
Miami Art JournalThree Hasidic men standing with their backs to the viewer, looking at a painting together, side by side. They're so exquisite that for a moment you think you're standing behind three guys staring at a painting.
Marc DennisTotally. And the idea behind it is, naturally, the best bar painting in history, by Édouard Manet. So, the barmaid is peeking out over all their heads. But the coolest thing is that in the actual painting there's a guy in the same fedora the Hasidim wear. So if I put him in front, people are gonna think he's reflected in the mirror. This is what motivated Velázquez: to put people into this thing I call the invisible foreground.
Miami Art JournalBecause when you're standing in front of your painting, you feel like you're behind them.
Marc DennisYeah, you're a participant.
Vanitas on Steroids
Miami Art JournalThat's one of the things that's difficult with a lot of modern art: it doesn't necessarily draw you in. It happens with books and songs. Certain songs resonate because as soon as you hear them, you think, this song is about me. When I photographed flowers over and over, I noticed they all had a personality. Some were timid, others bold and defiant, others nearly warlike, others highly sexual, others reserved and demure. I've never seen one of your paintings that doesn't do that in some way. What motivates you to paint such a rainbow of different flowers, often in the same bouquet?
Marc DennisIt's funny you bring that up, because I've just begun to focus on one species or hybrid of flower. Roses, peonies, and that's it, for a little while, to see what I can do with those. The inspiration was the Dutch vanitas, or memento mori, paintings, where flowers were placed in a single vase and some were fully alive, others wilting, some dead. There are many Dutch artists, I can't really pronounce their names, but Rachel Ruysch is one of my favorites. She's another muse. The purpose behind those was to show people not just the passage of time, but to elevate the status of the collector who
purchased the painting, because the flowers came from different countries and different times of the year. They could never have been harvested or cut at the same time. To do that, you had to have a lot of money. So, it was status, and it was also the remembrance that we're gonna die. So, live your fucking lives. I was inspired by that, but I wanted to make them contemporary. So, I thought, I'm gonna add some serious human emotion, put the Technicolor into these flowers, and put in new hybrids, hybrids of tulips that weren't around then. Because of that, I began to think the stems also play a role. The thorns mattered to me more than they did to the Dutch painters. Bugs were a big thing to me, because I had a cooking show on TV about eating bugs. Did you know that?
Miami Art JournalNo, I didn't.
Marc DennisYeah. "My Life in Food" on the Cooking Channel, produced by Al Roker. So bugs, insects, creepy crawlies, they're a big deal to me. Basically, I took the Dutch memento mori, vanitas paintings and injected steroids, and made them my own. Not just with the flowers, but with all the other elements that are part and parcel, including the reflections in the vases. And then I started incorporating bubbles.
Miami Art JournalOh, the bubbles are so good.
Marc DennisThe bubbles all show places I've been with my children, where we walked together, lived and so on.
Miami Art JournalThat's what people who have near-death experiences talk about. They say they were in some space and saw a bunch of spheres, and they could touch any sphere and go into the whole architecture of a particular memory, of a life lived.
Marc DennisThat's exactly what they are. I've never used that term.
Miami Art JournalSo you're pulling it straight from the ether.
Marc DennisWell, that's because it is. So the paintings took on a life of their own. The flowers were not just flowers. They became personalities, their own characters. They also became emotions. They were sad flowers, really happy, exuberant flowers, but they were all part of me. All part of my makeup. I've experienced every emotion possible, because how can you paint sincerely if you're not painting about personal experiences? So everything I do is based on personal experience.
Miami Art JournalThere have been times in my life of glamour and times of squalor. When you
dance between them, you get the breadth of experience, everything from the creepy crawlies to the thorns. If you look at the Dutch Masters or the Baroque, it's only the grandeur.
Marc DennisThose experiences keep you grounded in life. Dude, we've all been through stuff. I know the stuff I've been through. There are some things I don't wish on anyone. But it keeps you grounded to recognize and hold on to those memories as well. The thorns of life, you might say.
Cartoons and Comic Books
Miami Art JournalIn many of your works you do things with whimsical cartoon characters. Where does that come from?
Marc DennisHell yeah. I grew up on comic books, and I grew up on cartoons. Mostly Looney Tunes. Silly Symphonies, back in the day. Now they're all on YouTube, and I watch them. I watched The Cuphead Show on Netflix, which it seems no one knows about. Bob's Burgers blows my mind. The best is Gumball, Apple & Onion. My kids are 17 and 15. When they were younger, we used to watch all these shows together. And I was fascinated that these things were not real, but in my head they were just as touching and just as real. Even Popeye and Mighty Mouse. And I thought, I want a piece of this. I could draw when I was five or six, but I didn't really know how to develop that. So I started copying Archie, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four. I'd be drawing Captain America, and then I'd put my own faces in there. It started absolutely with me drawing comic books. And I still have the drawings.
The Courtroom
Miami Art JournalWhen did it start to transition to paint?
Marc DennisDude. I have wild stories. I never wanted to be an artist. Maybe a comic book artist, I could see that, or an illustrator, because I knew there was money coming in. To me, an artist was Picasso, the most famous, or Norman Rockwell, or Warhol. I thought I could be a Norman Rockwell. He was an illustrator, but he's recognized. I was so confused as a fifteen-year-old. People were telling me, talk to your guidance counselor. There was no internet. I'm like, fuck all that. Life will come to me. I was a little over my head. Adventurous. I got arrested. I went to jail. So in court, the judge said, "Young man, you're here for a very serious charge." It wasn't murder or anything, but it was pretty serious. And she says, "You're facing two years in a juvenile detention center, as opposed to going back
to high school for your last two years." End of my sophomore year. And I'm thinking, there's no way. I'm a good kid. I draw. I'm pretty talented. How could I have fucked up my life so easily? "But I have two letters here. One is written on your behalf by the vice principal of your school, who says you're a great kid." She read it. "The other letter is from your English teacher." I liked my English teacher. I could write, but why the English teacher? I had forgotten that I was on the yearbook committee. Something I didn't want anybody to know, because it was too uncool. My friends didn't even know. But my English teacher, was the club advisor. And I would illustrate the yearbooks. I did the cartoons, the characters, the football players. Plus there was a very cute girl on the committee. That helps. His letter said, "Marc Dennis, if there's any kid I know who deserves a second chance, it's this kid. He can really draw." It was really moving. So she said, "Okay, now I'm gonna give you the floor. You have twenty minutes to convince me," and the jury of my peers' parents. All the houses I robbed, they were all there. I stole cars. I robbed houses. When I was a fuck-up. So I stood in front of the court and addressed these people. My mother was there. And I went off on how I want to be a comic book artist, and how it's time America stood tall again in the industry, because at the time anime was taking over. I was okay with it, but no fucking way. I wanted American comic books right in front. And I said, I want to be that guy to help that.
Miami Art JournalA visionary.
Marc DennisI could talk. And she said, okay, we'll let you know my decision after my associates, she called them. They were asshole kids I robbed things with. One went to jail for nine months. He was eighteen. He wasn't at my school, a neighboring town. And my other friend got off as well. But she said, okay, you're gonna get off, go back to school. And I thought, oh my God, I have to follow through. I'm gonna be a comic book artist. That was my goal. And then I discovered painting, because I took an elective in painting, and I thought, oh my God, this is so freeing. You mean I can paint what I want, and people might like it? It's a roller coaster. Comic books became kind of weird to me, because I went to Comic Con. God bless them, they were really weird. I'm not that weird. I mean, I could be weird, but I want to go home and watch my Bruins hockey. I got two kids. I'm a single dad.
Marc DennisI love sports. I'm that guy. I cook a steak and I eat it. The comic guys would probably put a little Hulk on the steak and look at it. I met them and they had Superman underwear on. I'm like, I'm out of here. So I thought, if I have to associate with these people, I might not fit. I don't know where I fit, so I thought I should just be on my own. Like a lone wolf. Is that a good term or a bad term?
Miami Art JournalIt's great.
Marc DennisLone wolf sounds like a mercenary. Pee-wee Herman said, "I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel." May he rest in peace. I love helping people. I don't know if I'm an iconoclast. People think I am in some sense. But I just wanted to find my own path and make it work for me. There were templates in the comic book industry. You had to learn foreshortening a certain way. There were rules. I didn't like that at all. So that's why I veered off course, and next thing you know, I never looked back. And I do freelance illustration now. I love it. Book covers.
The Dead Grouse
Miami Art JournalWhen was the first time you painted a painting, looked at it, and said, wow, yes?
Marc DennisBest question I've ever been asked in my life, besides my kids asking what's for dinner. It was a painting of a dead bird, in art school. The girl I was dating, her mother gave it to her to give to me. Her mother loved me and was happy we were dating. She knew I loved animals, especially birds. It had flown into their window. They lived in the suburbs. It was a small ruffed grouse. Ruffed grouse aren't big birds, but they were the birds that Chardin, Courbet, and a lot of painters painted back in the day, which were such big inspirations for me. I was going to local butcher shops getting rabbits and pigeons and squabs and painting those. But she showed up to class one day with a brown paper bag with blood coming through it. She said, "This is for you. It's gross, but we're dating, so I know you're gonna love it. It's from my mom." And I asked my teacher if I could leave, and he's like, "Dude, I know you're excited." It had broken its neck. I have a picture on my phone. And I went home and I painted it through the night. Like eighteen hours. And when I looked at it, I thought, okay, I'm pretty good. I've got what it takes. It changed my life. It made me believe in myself, because I did not have that belief.
Miami Art JournalIf you find that photo, I'd love to include it. I'll send you a cleaned-up transcript, and you can pick four paintings you want to highlight.
Marc DennisSo I brought it into class, and everybody was like, oh my God, it's great. Honestly, praised. And then it was a long stretch of shit. Things I was confused with. And then I nailed it again years later. I did a painting that made me realize I could do this. It's seven feet high, a deer transforming, having been shot with an arrow.
Miami Art JournalIt reminds me of Actaeon.
Marc DennisIt's a combination of Actaeon and Saint Sebastian.
Miami Art JournalHave you seen the short film the National Gallery did? It's called Metamorphosis.
Marc DennisNo, but I should, because that's basically what it's about. The head of the elk is taken from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of my favorite museums. I used to stare at that elk. And the hand is mine. And there are the hunting dogs that devour him. When I did this painting, I thought, damn. That painting is in storage. It got rain damaged. I tried to fix it. Not sure what it looks like today.
Miami Art JournalThese are gonna be the ones people want.
Marc DennisMaybe. Way, way later, when I'm dead and gone.
The Golden Thread
Miami Art JournalI'm surrounded by lots of artists, and I can watch the light die in their eyes. I can see the ones who are stuck in their ways, and the ones who are determined to get better and better. This many make it through the first round, this many the second, and this many that last bit.
Marc DennisCouldn't agree more.
Miami Art JournalI was having a moment of discouragement, painting and feeling lonely, and I asked my AI for a story to encourage me. It told me about Van Gogh, painting even on days when he couldn't eat, until there was a moment when the yellow of the sunflowers struck him so hard that life was worth living. Those are the moments that keep you going. I call it the golden thread. There's all the noise of the world, and there's an invisible golden thread that moves through your entire life. No one else can see it. Sometimes it's a whisper, and sometimes it's as bright as the sun. Most of us are taught to ignore it, but for some it's impossible to ignore. And the story you're telling me is that you're the kind of person who can't ignore that pull.
Marc DennisI like that. I like shiny things, so to speak. I'm easily drawn to the light, because I'm so restless. It all comes down to one word, which is why I think I became a painter. Curiosity. I just have to explore. I was that kid growing up in the woods, in the jungles of Puerto Rico, where I had to get out of the house and walk down that path, or make my own, and turn over every rock, and break every branch to see what's inside it, and dig through a rotted tree base. So, curiosity.
Miami Art JournalThat resonates with your history. You've lived in a lot of interesting situations, among Native Americans. You've done a lot of traveling. And you have a strong sense of heritage.
Marc DennisHow do you know all this? I lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Have you ever seen Dances with Wolves? One of my favorite movies. That was filmed out there. The Lakota, otherwise known as the Western Sioux. It was fascinating.
Miami Art JournalWe're from the Pacific Northwest originally, Washington State. I've been a New Yorker for about fifteen years, but part of me is very much a curious naturalist. That's why flowers are such a draw, and birds and animals, the dead things and the living things, the decayed stumps, just like you're talking about. Exposure to a jungle, or to a culture with a stronger tie to the earth, and from the Jewish side, a sense of place.
Marc DennisBeing an artist, it's about my personal experiences. It's all I know. I know about other things, but the impetus to paint about them has to be because they've intersected with my life. I've always been a naturalist in my own right, but if someone came to me and said, you should really paint the redwoods, I couldn't, because I've never experienced them. I've never done underwater exploration. I'm not gonna go scuba diving. So I can't paint about it. I paint about my experiences: living on the reservation, walking through the El Yunque rainforest. It's what I know. And I paint a lot to extract my memories, to bring them to life again.
Advice for Emerging Artists
Miami Art JournalOne more question, if you don't mind. There might be artists reading this who see themselves doing what you're doing, but they're at the standing-in-front-of-the-judge moment of their lives. They're trying to tell whether they have that spirit. What do you say to them?
Marc DennisI created, developed, and taught a course on mentoring emerging artists. I've been doing it for sixteen, eighteen years, when I taught college, and at the Art Students League, not anymore. Now I do it on my own. And there are some absolute dos and don'ts. I'll give you number one, the most important. Two through ten are in no order. Number one: focus on the work. There's no such thing as best work or perfect work, but make the most effective work you can, that you feel okay standing next to. You don't have to feel exalted, but don't feel shitty. Make work you're gonna feel proud standing next to, or showing, or pulling back the curtain on. Two through ten, no order. Don't be a dick. Don't burn bridges. It's a small world, and the art world is a microcosm even within that world. So just be nice, be kind. If you're upset about something, or you don't
get a response to an email you sent a month ago, be nice. Circle back in a way that makes sure you're not putting anybody on a guilt trip. After that, learn to cultivate relationships, because if you want to advance your career in the art world, it's all about trust. Develop relationships with people you could be just as important to as they can be to you. It's like any relationship. Artists want to advance their careers, galleries want to advance theirs, and if it's the right fit, you both cultivate it. With patience and authenticity.
And know your lane, man. Don't go to an art fair and present your work. It's a death knell. Don't go set up a table with your own stuff where people paid for their booths. Just know your lane. And show up. Go to openings. If you live in Omaha, you're not in New York. Do your best. There are places in Omaha, places in Lincoln. Kansas, whatever the case might be. New York isn't the only epicenter. It's a global world. But you do have to show up. People do want to meet you. Save your money, go to art fairs, see familiar faces. And when you go to openings and see a familiar face, say, hi, I saw you here and there. If they're nice, they'll say, nice to see you again. In Yiddish, it's mensch. I was born a mensch. I can't teach someone how to be a mensch. You have to be who you are. You have to be real. You can't pretend to be someone you're not, because then you're already off on the wrong foot. So, cultivate relationships, know your lane, make the most effective work you can, and don't be a dick.
Miami Art JournalIt's perfect.
Marc DennisAnd you've got to be patient, in so many things in life. Everybody has their own brain, and we all think differently. Relationships are hard enough. Things look like a sure thing, and then something changes, priorities shift, promises. It's just like real life. Nobody owes you anything, man. The big problem with artists, and I had the same problem: everybody feels like they're owed something. I made a lot of mistakes. I went in thinking the art world was gonna come to me, that I didn't have to do much, because I was making what I thought was pretty damn good work. And I was wrong. Put yourself out there.
A Few More Questions
Miami Art JournalI have a question. When I've taken art classes and done a few projects on my own, I have pretty bad ADHD. Have there been times when you're doing something painstaking and you want to give up on it? What helps you keep going?
Marc DennisIf I'm working on a painting and I know damn well I want to finish it, like a dead squirrel I set up, it must be done. I gotta finish this. And if it's not working, oh my God, I
scrape it down, and I say to that squirrel, listen, you little sucker, I'm gonna honor your memory. You little dead rodent. I'm gonna make this thing work, because I've already invested six hours of my life, and I'm not throwing those hours away. So it's knowing which hill you die on.
Miami Art JournalWhat about a time constraint? Like in class, when we've got an hour.
Marc DennisIf they're putting you on a timer in art class, they're asking you to make decisions based on time, and they're doing it for a reason. That’s the time to experiment and explore. I told my students, you have ten seconds to do these drawings, and when I say change, the model changes pose. The floor was scattered with newsprint. The reason was to train them to capture everything in one glance. None of them got it right. That was the point. But if you're working on a painting on your own, there's no one telling you what to do. In class, you're always under the direction of somebody else, and that's why you can't wait to get out. Classes should be training grounds. The same way you play sports. The coach says, you gotta learn moves. What you do with those moves later in life is about the team you build. That's how you begin to find your own voice. Everybody has a coach. Everybody has a trainer. Everybody has a teacher. And at some point, you go home and make the paintings you want to make, that no one is telling you to make.
Jim Valvano, the basketball coach, was dying of cancer, and he said never, ever give up. It was the most famous speech, besides Lou Gehrig. The whole stadium was crying. So never give up. Why would you give up? You're still alive.
Miami Art JournalI haven't quit things before, but I struggle with staying on task. I have this invisible timer in my head.
Marc DennisI have ADHD. There's no doubt. I wear it right here. Everybody says to me, dude, what are you talking about, get back to it. I'll get there. Let me just circle around the world first. You have to work with that. Find out what works for you, because, like I said, everybody has their own brain. I like to sing while I paint. I need the external stimuli. I listen to music. You could put on any Marvel movie soundtrack and let it vibe.
Miami Art JournalDeadpool.
Marc DennisWhich is fantastic. The soundtrack alone. I listen to that when I paint. So I get it. You just have to figure stuff out. It could take you ten years. It could take a month. But don't ever let time be your enemy.
