In 1984 Dennis Marsico received a grant from the Graham Foundation for the Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, which resulted in a comparative photo-essay entitled The Italian Hilltown and the American Main Street Small Town. The photographs were exhibited at the il Diaframma Gallery in Milan and the Graham Foundation Gallery in Chicago. During this period his photographs were accepted for permanent collection in the Corcoran Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography and the Carnegie Museum of Art. In 1985, in collaboration with the Italian architectural critic Antonio Saggio, a second Graham Foundation grant was awarded. The project was a comprehensive study of the work of Giuseppe Terragni, an Italian neo-realist architect working in Milan and Como during the 1930’s. The photographs were published as a book entitled Giuseppe Terragni, Vita e Opere.

From 1987 to 2000 Marsico concentrated his efforts on editorial travel photography. He was commissioned regularly by Travel Holiday, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, and The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler.  In 1992 he won the Lowell Thomas Award given by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation for the best magazine black and white photography.  The story was entitled Winter in Tuscany, written by Saul Bellow. Again in 1993 Marsico received the award for a photo-essay entitled Paradise, a story that documented 13 towns in the USA named Paradise. Also in this period Absolut Vodka commissioned Marsico for a series of 16 ads, among those were Absolut Rome, Absolut Portugal, Absolut Seville and Absolut Polynesia.

A marked change of focus occurred in 2001 with the formation of Dionysus Press. Marsico moved from making clever photographs of people in specific places to photo-essays with social context.  The first editions published in 2002 were Right Noise and Policing Pleasure, each addressing pertinent political issues of the time.

In October 2005 Marsico was part of the exhibit Messages and Communications at the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh.  His installation, Passion and Politics, amplified his sentiments by way of a cylindrical "Rare Book Room" divided into polarized points of view.

The photographer continues his passion for photography along with the craft of letterpress printing.  At the present time he is experimenting with imprinting invisible messages on the surface of his photographs.