Brian Dettmer, born in 1974, was raised in Naperville, Illinois. Until 2006, Dettmer lived in and around Chicago, where he earned his BA in 1997 from Columbia College Chicago (Camper 2005). Dettmer is currently based in Atlanta, where he works full time as an artist.
Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures. A significant and notable body of Dettmer's work is created by altering books without inserting or moving any of the books' contents. Dettmer seals, then slices and carves into older textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, medical guides, science books, engineering books, history books, comic books, and others, exposing select images and text to create intricate derivative works which impart or reveal new or alternative interpretations of the books.
