Denise Prince: Object Lessons

In large paintings, photographs, performance and a 16mm film, Denise Prince seeks to lay bare the outsized role that fantasy plays in the construction of identity and the perception of reality.

In Object Lessons, Prince establishes a bold and evocative space for psychological play that blends youthful fantasies about what adulthood will be, and adult recollections of childhood, into a mythology that is both baffling and assuring. Of great interest are the ways in which each of us becomes an object and how we as objects communicate valuation. Striding the space between childhood and adulthood is the depiction of sexuality, which marks the change between them.

_____________________________________________________________________________

En grandes pinturas, fotografías, performances y una película de 16mm, Denise Prince busca dejar al descubierto el enorme papel que juega la fantasía en la construcción de la identidad y la percepción de la realidad.

En Lecciones Objetivas, Prince establece un espacio audaz y evocador para el juego psicológico que combina fantasías juveniles sobre lo que será la edad adulta y recuerdos adultos de la infancia, en una mitología que es a la vez desconcertante y tranquilizadora. Son de gran interés las formas en que cada uno de nosotros se convierte en objeto y cómo nosotros, como objetos, comunicamos valoración.

About the Artist

Denise Prince is an artist and filmmaker based in Austin, Texas with both commercial and fine art practices. Prince was educated in fine arts, feminism and critical theory at the Booker T Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and at CalArts. 

Prince began her professional art practice working in film and public installation while living in Los Angeles and New York from 1991 to 1999. Prince’s area of concentration turned to photography in 2005. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, is permanently installed in Austin’s W Hotel and has been shown at museums and galleries nationally and internationally. She continued to institute the ethics of her public practice in installations and also bring everyday people into her work as subject, evidenced by the diverse socio-economic, ethnic and age range of her subjects and the themes that they present.