A Western realist and modern luminist painter, Denys has been inspired by subjects from the West Coast to the East Coast, all over the western U.S, Europe and as far as Africa. He enjoys painting large-scale work.

Born in Texas in 1946, he moved to Utah in 1948 and has lived in the Prove/Orem area. While attending Brigham Young University, he was inspired by artists of the Hudson River School. In the mid 1800s this American art movement included Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church and Thomas Moran. They created a romanticized style of landscape painting. The term "luminisim" came from this movement.