Denese Oates is a Sydney-based sculptor who has been exhibiting for over thirty years.  Her sculptures are often a mass of intertwined copper wires fashioned into abstracted organic forms, each piece beautifully constructed and created with a symmetry of its own.  Denese has a fascination with nature on a minute scale, schematically mapping out human and botanical vascular systems that resemble strange organic forms transplanted from a mysterious landscape.  That imaginary landscape is partly inspired by John Keats' “The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream” where the poet describes a timeless garden of strange fruits, floral wreaths and arbours symbolic of poetic imagination.  This allusion to Keats' literary imagery emerges in naming some of the works as an expression of love of Keats' language.  Denese's choice of metal as her preferred medium creates a dichotomy between the durability of her pieces and the transient and fragile subject matter she depicts. 
 
Born in Orange in the central west of NSW, Denese moved to Sydney to study at the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education in Sydney (now College of Fine Art, UNSW) before embarking on extensive travels in Japan, Papua New Guinea, Europe and North and South America.  Denese has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationwide and her work is represented in collections including Parliament House, Christchurch City (NZ), Artbank, University of New South Wales, Wollongong City Art Gallery,  Burnie Art Gallery, Orange Regional Gallery and New England Regional Art Museum.