Jeremy Dennis is a contemporary fine art photographer, an enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, New York, and lead artist and founder of the non-profit Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc., on the Shinnecock Reservation. In his work, he explores Indigenous identity, culture, and assimilation.
Jeremy was among ten recipients of a 2016 Dreamstarter Grant from the national non-profit organization Running Strong for American Indian Youth. He was awarded $10,000 to pursue his project, On This Site—Indigenous Long Island, which uses photography and an interactive online map to showcase culturally significant Native American sites on Long Island, a topic of special meaning for Jeremy, who was raised on the Shinnecock Nation Reservation. He also created a book and exhibition from this project. In 2020 Jeremy received Dreamstarter GOLD, which includes an additional $50,000 in support from Running Strong for American Indian Youth. Most recently, Jeremy received the Artist2Artist Fellowship from the Art Matters Foundation.
Jeremy is also known for his ongoing Rise and Nothing Happened Here series. These works present themes of belonging, reconciliation, decolonization, and invisibility to the viewer from an Indigenous lens.
In 2013 Jeremy began working on the Stories—Indigenous Oral Stories, Dreams, and Myths series. Inspired by North American Indigenous stories, the artist staged supernatural images that transform these myths and legends into depictions of an actual experience in a photograph.
Notable Residencies: Andy Warhol Visual Arts Program (2023), SmokeSygnals (2021), Lightworks (2021), Santa Fe Art Institute (2021), Yaddo (2019), Byrdcliffe Artist Colony (2017), MDOC Storytellers’ Institute (2018), Byrdcliffe Art Residency (2018), Eyes on Main Street Residency & Festival (2018), Watermill Center (2017), and the Vermont Studio Center hosted by the Harpo Foundation (2016).
He has been part of several group and solo exhibitions, including So Spoke the Earth, the Past, and the Present at the Mason Gross Galleries at Rutgers University (2023); Stories—Dreams, Myths, and Experiences for The Parrish Art Museum’s Road Show (2018); Stories, From Where We Came at Stony Brook University (2018) Trees Also Speak at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery at SUNY College at Old Westbury (2018) Nothing Happened Here at the Flecker Gallery at Suffolk County Community College (2018) On This Site: Indigenous People of Suffolk County, Suffolk County Historical Society, Riverhead, NY (2017); and Pauppukkeewis at the Zoller Gallery at Penn State (2016).
Jeremy Dennis holds an MFA from Pennsylvania State University and a BA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University. He lives and works in Southampton, New York, on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation.
