Born in 1960 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dennis Carney went on to receive his BFA in Advertising Art in 1985 from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He was employed as a designer and art director for seven years before deciding to pursue a career in fine art.

The classical quality in the work of Dennis Carney conjures images of lost cities of antiquity, fragments of statues and textures of surfaces etched by centuries of wear. Surprisingly, this Neoromanticism, this understanding of the layering of elements and the process of erosion and change came about, at least in part, by the opportunity to study with the master ceramicist, Peter Voulkos.

Whether employed in ceramics or in his painting, Carney uses a layering of rich textures and glazes on the surface of a piece. He describes it as a process of construction-destruction and reconstruction, which symbolizes decay and rebirth.

Carney believes there is a challenge in his work for the viewer to see the complexities of the mundane growth and change in our bodies, our lives and our world around us as positive, constructive progressions of life.