New Zealand and Nelson based highly illustrative artist with a penchant for word-play in the titles of his paintings. "Art can be seen as an unconcious search for an authentic self, and here searching is the main narrative thread. Stringing loosely together universal questions of belonging and identity-national and cultural, personal and spiritual... or joining knotty contemporary realitys with humanity's hardwired hunt for a tribal hearth. Salient searches that are often unresolved like the ambiguities portrayed in these works". Dean's paintings on found objects, glass, wood, boards and canvas are interlaced with social and environmental commentary, black humour and ambiguous musings on human existence. The interplay of words, flora and fauna, birds and pattern all combine to create a mystical dream-like trance of finely executed treasures.

Often collected for his lyrical and humorous artworks Dean's pieces evoke a New Zealand surrealist environment that has its roots firmly grounded in his inimitable "tongue in cheek" style.