About Brianna

Brianna L. Hernández (b. 1991) is a Chicana artist, curator, educator, and death doula guided by socially-engaged practices. Her background includes experience working in community organizations, gallery, museum, and higher education settings, and as a consultant with public health researchers. In developing as an artist and creative professional Brianna credits her late mother, Sylvia D. Hernández, as her most significant mentor and inspiration for the creativity, resilience, and compassion she demonstrated throughout her life.

In the studio, Brianna creates installations through several mediums including large-scale charcoal drawings, video art, sculpture, and performances. Her work focuses on end-of-life care, grieving processes, and mourning rituals based on lived experience, cultural research, and collaborations with peers. In addition to formal artworks, her practice offers workshops and takeaway resources for viewers to express grief and explore end-of-life wishes through the safety of the creative process.

As a curator, Brianna works with artists to make socially-charged topics publicly accessible in order to create opportunities for education and empathy. As an extension of this socially-conscious approach, Brianna frequently collaborates with community health researchers to incorporate the arts into collection and dissemination of public health project data.

Brianna proudly serves as Director of Curation and Board Secretary of Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton, New York and as Assistant Curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, NY. Additionally, she is the Board Treasurer at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Committee Member for the Gente Chicana/SOYmos Chicanos Arts Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

Learn more by exploring interviews and press or the linked CV here.