Denise Susanne Townsend is an interdisciplinary artist who began her formal education in the arts in Florence, Italy while immersed in the power of the region’s presence: the river Arno, Tuscan hillsides, and a language that carries itself like song. Inspired by mezzo-frescos of the Italian Renaissance both in their magnitude and beauty, Denise apprenticed to the craft during her graduate studies there and later began exploring a combination of enigmatic painting materials mimicking the texture and ethos of those ancient frescoed walls.

Upon completion of her graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, Denise resumed her international travels inquisitively venturing to live and work abroad. Receiving much inspiration from encounters with exquisite places and people from around the globe, she returned to the Bay Area after an eighteen month sojourn in the Middle East immersing herself in the landscape of Lucid Art Foundation’s Bishop Pine Preserve. Surrounded by forest creatures, silence and time unbound, Denise continued to refine and synthesize her artistic vision incorporating natural materials in handcrafted paints made of earth minerals, plant medicines, ash, and stone.

Currently living and working in Nanjing, Denise is exploring both ancient and modern landscapes of China in her abstract works in collage, paper and canvas. Denise’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States, Europe, and South America and resides in private collections at home and abroad. The agency of her art is deeply influenced by the multitude of reverberations of our collective clarion call, carrying us swiftly into a world where art is not only poetry but also metaphor, medicine and muse.

Selected Solo Exhibitions and Group Shows

2022 Convoy, High Beams #6, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Denver Colorado

2021 Suspended Shore, co-curated by Denise Susanne Townsend, Tobias Tovera and Anthony Russell, The Ark Project, Oakland, California/Boulder, Colorado/Salton Sea, California

2020 Alumni Artists-in-Residence Exhibition, Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, California

2018 Betti Ono Gallery, Oakland, California

2018 Invisible Light, Casa de Artes Sustentaves, co-curated by Denise Susanne Townsend, Tobias Tovera and Mika Aono, The Ark Project, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

2018 Il Filo Degli Altri, SACI Gallery, Florence, Italy

2017 Origin, co-curated by Denise Susanne Townsend, Tobias Tovera and Ari Rudenko, The Ark Project, Oakland, California

2016 Symbiosis, co-curated by Denise Susanne Townsend and Tobias Tovera, The Ark Project, Oakland, California

2016 Lucid Art Residency Annual Exhibition, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, California

2014 Ephemera, Andrew Clark Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2012 Il Filo Degli Altri, SACI Gallery, Florence, Italy

2012 Third Strike, 100 Performances for the Hole, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA

2012 Dynamo, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado

2012 Vernissage, San Francisco Art Institute MFA Thesis Exhibition, San Francisco, California

2011 Keeping an Eye on Surveillance, The Performance Art Institute, San Francisco, California

2011 Co·labor·ation, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, California

2010 Trio, Studio Soma, Denver, Colorado

2010 Thirteen, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, California

2010 Abandon, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, California

2009 6 Routes: Same Destination, La Corte Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy

2008 The Cradle Project, Albuquerque, New Mexico

2008 Alaya Studio, Louisville, Colorado

Residencies, Retreats, Publications and Awards

2022 Mountain Water Retreat, Creative Alchemy, Gardener, Colorado

2020 The Ark Project, Oakland, California/Boulder, Colorado/Salton Sea, California

2021 Leaping Clear: An online magazine of Art, Literature and Contemplation, Santa Cruz, California

2018 The Ark Project, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, hosted by Casa de Artes Sustentaves

2016 - 2017 The Ark Project, Oakland, California

2015 Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, California

2012 Nominee and Finalist for the Headlands Graduate Fellowship, The Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California

Education

2012 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, Master of Fine Arts

2009 Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy, Post-Baccalaureate in Fine Arts

2004 Colorado School of Energy Studies, Boulder, Colorado, BCST

2001 Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies, Boulder, Colorado, CCH

1991 Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Master of Education: Creative Arts in Learning