Denita Benyshek

BIO

Dr. Benyshek was born in a Czech immigrant community. She received a BFA from Wichita State University and an MFA from University of Washington. At Saybrook University, she earned a graduate certificate in the psychology of creativity and an MA and PhD in humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Dr. Benyshek attended the Pilchuck Glass School on a full scholarship and was an artist-in-resident at the Ucross Foundation, Wyoming. For 15 years, she taught visual art and dance in the bush villages of Alaska. Her research focuses on contemporary artists as shamans, with publications in the USA, UK, Poland, Hungary, and China. Her artwork was included in group exhibits in west coast museums, with solo exhibits in Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, Sun Valley, ID, and Santa Fe, NM. Dr. Benyshek’s work is in the public art collections of the University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, King County Ethnic Heritage Collection, Glasmuseet of Ebeltoft, Denmark, and Snoqualmie Point Park. In 2022, OpenStudios selected Benyshek as the Botanica gardens artist-in-residence and, in 2024, she was awarded the Koch Cultural Trust enabling grant. Upcoming exhibits include the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS, Reuben Saunders Gallery, Wichita, KS and Viridian Artists, New York City, NY.

Dr. Benyshek’s artwork is influenced by her Slavic heritage, gardens, nature, quantum physics, folk art, travel, animism, and transpersonal psychology. In 2018, she was initiated into shamanism by three women shamans from South Korea.

In Dr. Benyshek’s paintings, fantasy, visions, and dreams are interwoven with sensate reality. Her visual language integrates heightened color, nonlinear time, reverie provoking discontinuous space, intuitive combinations, and a belief in the transcendent power of beauty.

For Dr. Benyshek, art making is an act of service. During daily meditation and shamanic prayer, she invites the spirits of nature to enter and speak through her. Her goal is to create compelling doorways through which onlookers enter visionary and ethereal realms of heightened reality. In this liminal state, her audience may engage in meaning-making creative processes, connecting intimately to self, the eternal cycle of life, and the cosmic soul of nature.

Formal Education

PhD in humanistic and transpersonal psychology, Saybrook University.
Graduate certificate in the psychology of creativity, Saybrook University.
MA in marriage and family therapy/psychology, Saybrook University.
MFA painting, University of Washington.
BFA painting, Wichita State University.
Pilchuck Glass School, full scholarship.
Training in dance (ballet, modern, jazz, ethnic) and vocals (jazz, blues).

ART

Private and public collections, including:
University of Washington Medical Center.
Harborview Medical Center.
King County Ethnic Heritage Collection.
The Glass Museum, Ebeltoft, Denmark.

Past curated group shows include:
Redefining Visionary Art, New York City.
New Orleans.
Ashland, NC.
Fujinomiya, Japan,
Whatcom Museum.
Bellevue Art Museum.

Solo exhibits at art galleries in:
Seattle, WA,
Tacoma, WA,
Olympia, WA,
Kirkland, WA,
Bellingham, WA,
Sun Valley, ID,
Santa Fe, NM,
Portland, OR, and
Wichita, Kansas.




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