The great-granddaughter of a Finnish seer, Jen DeNike creates work steeped in ceremony. Her diverse output, which includes photography, video, performance, and sculpture, features both artifacts and depictions of the rituals she performs. For her exhibition “Star Card” (2012-13), she created an immersive environment informed by the 17th Major Arcana tarot card, known as the star card; believed to represent a cycle of endless renewal, it features a woman pouring water into a pond and onto land. The exhibition included white canvases inscribed with circular marks, which DeNike described as being created while in a trance, and photographs of a nude woman performing the actions illustrated on the card of the show's title. In the photograph Circle of Stars (2012), the woman is face down in the water, her physical immersion a metaphor for the artist's entrance into an altered state.
The great-granddaughter of a Finnish seer, Jen DeNike creates work steeped in ceremony. Her diverse output, which includes photography, video, performance, and sculpture, features both artifacts and depictions of the rituals she performs. For her exhibition “Star Card” (2012-13), she created an immersive environment informed by the 17th Major Arcana tarot card, known as the star card; believed to represent a cycle of endless renewal, it features a woman pouring water into a pond and onto land. The exhibition included white canvases inscribed with circular marks, which DeNike described as being created while in a trance, and photographs of a nude woman performing the actions illustrated on the card of the show's title. In the photograph Circle of Stars (2012), the woman is face down in the water, her physical immersion a metaphor for the artist's entrance into an altered state.