artists

Dean Dempsey

Dean Dempsey is a contemporary artist whose photography addresses theories of hybridity, origin and notions of belonging by using both personal and public histories.  Coming from a working-class Mexican-American family, Dean utilizes the multiple self-composite to construct fluid narratives about  perceptions of race and personhood while simultaneously staging situations to explore global politics and the impact of diaspora.  His images employ theatricality, with himself embodying a variety of characters as a form of storytelling by way of memory and fictional reconstructions. Through his positioning of individuals as other-bodied figures, Dean comments on belonging and origin as a space of encounter and a medium of passage to approximate selfness.

Dean Dempsey earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute where he also co-founded three campus groups and served on the Board of Trustees as the undergraduate representative. His photographic light boxes have been exhibited at several national and international galleries in North America, Europe and Asia.  In 2009, Dean was awarded first place for self-portraiture by the International Photography Awards in Los Angeles. In addition, he is a 2009-10 recipient of En Foco’s New Work’s Photography Fellowship Awards#13 Exhibition in New York City.  This national competition was juried by Anne Tucker, Curator for Photography at Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Dean Dempsey currently lives and works in San Francisco.