Denise was born and raised in Duluth, MN. She spent two years living and traveling throughout Europe before getting her BA in 1998, in international relations and Italian literature at the University of Minnesota. During a fifth year of study at the University of Bologna she attended a Byzantine art course, which perked a growing interest in medieval art. Three years later she returned to Italy to study traditional mosaic methods at the Cooperativa Mosaica in Ravenna, and now reinterprets these techniques using natural materials that are indigenous to Minnesota.  Over the past six years years she has focused on sculptural forms in collaboration with Mark Roberts, exhibiting first “the College of Cardinals” in 2004 at the Vision VIII International Juried show in Covington Kentucky. Examples of the work have been featured at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami, FL and Gallery Sei-Un-Do in Zurich, Switzerland. The “Art of the Catacomb” exhibition debuted in August at Gallery 181 in Lawrence, Massachusetts before premiering at Nina Bliese Gallery in Minneapolis this past fall. Denise and Mark have expanded their collaboration with the “Last Polaroid Show,” an ongoing project of manipulated Polaroid film imagery centered on the surroundings of Como Conservatory in St. Paul, MN. Large prints of these botanicals, along with examples from "Art of the Catacomb"  are currently on display at La Belle Vie Restaurant in Minneapolis.