Kimmah Dennis (b. 1996, Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire) is a Liberian-Ivorian painter and photographer exploring traditional, experimental, and conceptual materials. Drawing on both existing and absent archives, her art reflects powerful narratives of governmental abuses, forced child recruitment, and the trauma of displacement— experiences rooted in her birth during the First Liberian Civil War.
These histories have profoundly shaped her artistic practice, driving her to reject the confines of a single medium. Instead, Dennis employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining painting, drawing, collage, and installation to merge traditional and modern forms on a single canvas. She intuitively responds to each mark, creating works that navigate formal elements and narrative depth while exploring connections to place and space.
Dennis earned a BFA from Rutgers University and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was awarded the prestigious New Artist Society Full Scholarship Merit Award. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with a recent solo exhibition at the Trolley Barn Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY. She has also shown at notable institutions and galleries, including the American Academy in Rome, the New York Academy of Art, the John David Mooney Foundation, the University of Chicago, Color Club in Chicago, Shine Studio in Newark, Manufacturers Village in New Jersey, the Paul Robeson Gallery in New Jersey, and the Philly Art Collective in Philadelphia. Dennis is proud to have been awarded the 2024-25 Terra Foundation Affiliated Rome Prize Fellowship by the American Academy in Rome.