Artist Reyna Hernandez utilizes mixed media across disciplines to investigate the concept of identity hybridity in relation to her Indigenous bloodlines and westernized arts education. Reyna attempts to investigate her place in the world while examining the complex connections between western discourse, epistemic violence in academia, and her own sense of Dakota identity. 

Reyna has exhibited work throughout the United States, and was selected as a featured artist inI AM: Exploring Identity Through the Self-Portrait, an exhibit in association with the 2015Guerrilla Girls Take Over the Twin Cities.She was the recipient of the Oscar Howe Curatorial Fellowship in 2015 and has continued to discuss her research while visiting colleges and classrooms around the U.S. Reynahas spoken on panels and exhibited work at All My Relations Art in Minneapolis MN, and won 2nd place mixed media at the 2016 Northern Plains Tribal Arts Show. She has served as a visiting artist at New Mexico State University (2019) and Colorado College (2018), where she held her first solo exhibit in the college’s Coburn Gallery.

Hernandez is Ihanktonwan Dakota (Yankton Sioux), and received her B.A in English and B.F.A in Studio Arts at the University of South Dakota in 2016. She is currently working on a community-based mural project in Vermillion, SD where she also lives and works.

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