Artist Statement:
“The use of repetition in my work is to exploit the mental loops we find ourselves in.
recounting memories, re-hashing the events of what had happened, the means of trying to understand, that need to know.
As a young child, you would regularly hear me start a sentence after a long period of silence “Remember when…” and continue on with a short story of an event that happened in my life years prior. I always found myself reviewing my memories, as if to decipher some clue as to why they had occurred.
intertwined with memory is the concept of time…
Time... the fictitious mode of being that constitutes the entirety of life. Our memories become the ghost of time passed, of once was, of never again, the things that made us who we are in the present, the moments that defined how we make the decisions of who we will become.
Repetition is tool used in both the physical number of repeating objects as well as the repeating physical motions it takes to create each piece.
intensive, intentional, meditative, further understanding of the self and mind, creating a quietness and yet stirring up dust, making sane of the insanity of the looping mind.”
-Briona Hendren
About
Briona Hendren is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is an ongoing exploration of psychology, memory and time, as it relates to identity, society and nature.
Through the use of repetition, sculpture, site specific interventions, printmaking and performance, she dives into biomorphic architectural re-imaginations of memory by unearthing entangled patterns of personal narratives.
Briona received her BFA in Sculpture and Museum & Gallery Methods from Sonoma State University. In addition to her art practice, Briona is the Curator for the Voigt Family Sculpture Foundation, Operations Manager for the Pacific Rim Sculptors, as well as the Metal Arts Director for Chimera Arts & Makerspace.
Her work has been on view throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and internationally. Her work can be seen at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, (Santa Rosa, CA), Pepperwood Preserve (Santa Rosa, CA), Ives Park (Sebastopol, CA) , and SOMO Village (Rohnert Park, CA).
Recently, Briona completed a collaborative interactive art installation commissioned by the City of Santa Rosa through Kimzin Creative and the “A Future Worth Planning For” project; Journey to the Future is a social art project as a part of the city’s 30-year strategic plan (the General Plan Update) focusing on the dreams of Santa Rosa youth as they were asked to envision the possibilities of the city they call home in the year 2050. With data collected through world building workshops facilitated by Briona and artist Erika Lutz, voices of SR youth are heard and their visions will be directly implemented into the city’s 30yr strategic plan.
Notably, Briona was one of five selected artists to receive a $30,000 grant from the Pa’lante Artist Grant Program. This grant was made possible with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and programmatic partnership with the Center for Cultural Innovation. The Pa’lante Artist Grant Program is a community-led grant initiative of LA ASAMBLEA, a new collective by/for Sonoma County BIPOC & QUEER artists + co-conspirators, collaboratively led by consultant groups Kimzin Creative, On the Margins, and the Asesores( a group of diverse, local arts and culture workers).
Briona continues to work on a number of private commissions, developing a traveling foundry (more to be told soon on this!), as well as building out her new shop and studio space in south Santa Rosa,CA.