John Dennison

John Dennison was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1948.

Dennison studied fine art at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design) between 1968 and 1971, where he majored in photography, commercial art and design. He apprenticed in commercial photography and worked as a darkroom technician with a specialization in print advertising.

Dennison worked as a freelance photographer before taking a full time position with the advertising department of a major company. All the while he has drawn inspiration from his extensive travels in England, Europe, and America.

From his earliest years he has devoted equal passion to his own drawing, whether creating books of studio-based still life drawings or recording his observations of the urban environment. He is known for idiosyncratic tableaux that incorporate such disparate objects as a spider and a baby shoe.

Currently, he is drawing full time and is developing a comprehensive book surveying years of his work. New work includes images of baby paraphernalia in black-and-white as well as colour pencil drawings of cigarette butts. The latter Dennison collects with tweezers from curbs and cafes, then creates detailed renderings of the discarded objects. Like an anthropologist, he brings an objective status to the ephemera of everyday life that elevates them to a position of artistic value.