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A self-taught artist, Deniz first sought expression through traditional painting but quickly moved on to pyropainting, a technique she invented herself through a series of not-so-controlled experiments exposing pigment to fire. The resulting works – nebulous, emotive bursts of translucent dye on glass – seem to warp and evolve with every change in the light, forcing the eye to continuously re-evaluate the images, and thus making each viewer a participant in the works merely by perceiving them.

In this same vein of interactive art, Deniz has also brought her vision to a much larger scale, building her art installation Carousel Candeo for Burning Man 2016. It was later exhibited at the Museum of Ventura County. The carousel consisted of several community-created, pyropainted disks that spun and projected light differently. The carousel effectively placed participants inside a spinning kaleidoscope, up-ending their normal experience of context, age, body, gravity, and perception all at once.