Cj Hendry turns drawing sculpture and participation into an immersive landscape
Secret Garden by Cj Hendry and Sulwhasoo is an immersive art installation first presented at The Brant Foundation Gallery in New York before travelling to Seoul, combining drawing, sculpture and participation within a garden-like environment. Developed as part of Sulwhasoo’s global Beauty Crafted in Time campaign, the project takes inspiration from the hidden garden at The House of Sulwhasoo Bukchon in Seoul. It translates that reference into a physical landscape built from flat-pack wooden sculptures and puzzle-like forms. Presented in New York from 18 to 20 September 2026, the installation is followed by a Seoul presentation from 30 September to 8 October.
The structure of Secret Garden is based on accumulation, with individual wooden elements arranged collectively until they read as a larger forest-like environment. Hendry’s interest in highly controlled image-making is transferred here from paper into space, allowing visitors to encounter the work through movement, proximity and physical interaction. The sculptures retain a graphic quality while functioning as components of a broader spatial composition, creating a setting that can be entered, navigated and altered over the course of the exhibition.
Participation becomes central once visitors move through the installation, because the garden is designed to be activated through drawing and colour rather than observed at a distance. Each guest receives a custom box of crayons and is invited to add colour to the wooden structures or create drawings within the space, allowing the installation to change gradually as more people take part. This collective process gives Secret Garden a temporal quality, with the final appearance of the work shaped not only by Hendry’s original design but also by the accumulated gestures of its audience.
The collaboration also connects directly to Sulwhasoo’s emphasis on heritage, craftsmanship and the long development of beauty over time. The brand’s 60 years of ginseng innovation provide the broader context for the project, while Hendry’s use of repetition, precision and material construction offers a visual interpretation of those ideas without turning the exhibition into a literal brand display. Instead, the concept of time is embedded in the way the installation is assembled, entered and progressively altered, allowing process itself to become one of the defining features of the experience.
Cj Hendry has described Secret Garden as a way of considering how individual components gain new meaning once they are brought together, an idea reflected in both the sculptural system and the participation of visitors. The collaboration therefore moves between the singular and the collective, beginning with separate wooden forms before developing into a larger environment that changes through use. Cj Hendry’s practice is already known for hyper-realistic drawing and immersive exhibitions, and this project continues that expansion from image to spatial experience through an installation designed around touch, movement and active involvement.
After its New York presentation, Secret Garden continues in Seoul, returning the project to the city that inspired its initial concept through The House of Sulwhasoo Bukchon. The shift between the two locations gives the installation a second context while preserving its central structure of assembly and participation, allowing the project to connect Sulwhasoo’s Korean heritage with Cj Hendry’s immersive visual language across two different audiences.
Photography by Antonio Ajam, with courtesy of Cj Hendry
