Jeremy Dennis (b. 1990, Southampton, New York) makes works that document two realities: the geography of his imagination alongside that of the land where he grew up as a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation on Long Island. Sometimes Dennis digs through historical archives to bring the past back to life, creating maps that reveal what once existed on lands where housing developments, parking lots, and state parks currently stand. At other times, he turns to legends passed down orally, transforming North American indigenous stories into digitally printed images that resemble film stills. Mythical figures from classical antiquity (Prometheus and Odysseus, for instance) echo in his compositions, as do figures from paintings by Edvard Munch and Hieronymus Bosch. Dennis’s most recent series of photographs portrays Native Americans as actors in zombie shows on television; the original undead, they rise from the earth to haunt the consciousness of a nation built on burying them.
