BREANA HENDRICKS
Breana Hendricks’s sculptural installations explore the intertwined histories of colonialism, commerce, and cultural identity. Her work employs ceramic tiles, turbinado sugar, artificial greenery, and repurposed materials to craft surreal landscapes that invite viewers to reflect on the histories embedded in everyday commodities and natural forms. Drawing from her Caribbean heritage and upbringing in New York, Hendricks’s art weaves narratives of resilience, memory, and transformation. These themes are intricately woven throughout her installations, inviting viewers to reflect on the strength of cultural continuity, the power of historical acknowledgment, and the potential for creative renewal.
In one installation, Hendricks incorporates sugar—a material steeped in the legacy of exploitation during the transatlantic slave trade. She reimagines it as a sculptural medium, challenging its traditional role as a consumable product. This transformation echoes her broader inquiry into the commodification of natural resources and its lasting social impacts. By pairing this with ceramic bananas and leaves made of aluminum, Hendricks constructs a visual dialogue between the artificial and the organic, questioning the absurdities of recreating natural objects by industrial means.
Sound also plays a critical role in her installations. A sound shower of ocean waves enhances the immersive environment, recalling the maritime routes of the transatlantic slave trade while offering a contemplative space for reflection.
Hendricks’s influences range from Caribbean art traditions to the assemblage art movement, particularly the works of Betye and Alison Saar. Her installations draw on the legacy of pre-Columbian pottery and the surrealist tradition, combining historical craftsmanship with contemporary materials and techniques. The use of vibrant ceramic glazes and playful forms evokes markets laden with abundance, while the underlying themes critique the systems that commodify both objects and identities.
Through her installations, Hendricks invites viewers to consider the histories tied to everyday materials, the resilience of cultural memory, and the possibility of reimagining the past to craft a more equitable future.
— Jessica Lieber, OSU Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy, MA Student
EXHIBITION DOCUMENTATION BY SAM LO, OSU MFA PHOTOGRAPHY 2026