St. Petersburg, Florida-based artist, Denise Marie, has been creating since childhood. She hopes to inspire everyone to find and express the creative potential within. Denise believes art is the ultimate healing modality and a fundamental form of human expression. She received several art scholarships for her schooling. Denise attended Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, PA, with a Major in Sculpture. She continued her education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL where she received her master's degree in Art Therapy. She has exhibited her work in several juried art shows and outdoor events throughout Florida and has worked with myriad media. ARTIST STATEMENT"As a small and only child, I made purposeful creations from seemingly random things found in the acres of woods behind my rural Pennsylvania home. Walnut shells became tiny boats that drifted down the creek, gnarled sticks and scraps of yarn morphed into beautiful God’s Eyes, and leaf rubbings bore whole universes. My art was prayer. My art was healing. The artist was born in me and has since remained. ​Today, I continue to work in various media to create personal moments inspired by nature and what I find in my world. My work is inspired by fragments of thought, emotions, and micro experiences of my daily life. Both unexpected and personal found objects converge to form an abstraction based on subjective association, which invites the viewer and me to make new personal connections. ​My pieces sometimes, but rarely, show the complete structure. This deconstruction creates multifaceted definitions open to interpretation and captures the nuances of my shifting understandings. My art is prayer. My art is healing."