CJ Hendry Events 2026: The Complete Guide to Every Pop-Up, Installation and Exhibition This Year
Catherine Jenna Hendry — better known as CJ Hendry — has become one of the most exciting forces in contemporary art not despite working outside the traditional gallery system, but because of it. The Brisbane-born, New York-based artist built her reputation through hyper-realistic, large-scale ink drawings of luxury objects, but it is her immersive pop-up experiences that have made her a global phenomenon. In 2026, she is running her most ambitious international programme to date, with events spanning Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New York. Here is everything you need to know.
Who Is CJ Hendry?
Born in 1988 in South Africa and raised in Brisbane, Australia, CJ Hendry studied architecture at Queensland University of Technology before dropping out to pursue art full-time. Self-taught rather than art-school trained, she honed a signature scribbling technique using ink on paper to produce works that are routinely mistaken for photographs. She moved to New York in 2015 and has since built one of the most engaged followings in contemporary art — primarily through Instagram, where her process videos and exhibition announcements regularly go viral.
Her exhibitions defy the conventions of the white-cube gallery. Past concepts have featured inflatable swimming pools in the Nevada desert, giant soft-play castles, and a bodega stocked entirely with hyperrealistic drawings of junk food. The Flower Market, her most beloved recurring concept, packs a greenhouse-style pavilion with tens of thousands of plush flowers that visitors can pick, build into bouquets, and take home. Her newer JuJu collectible series — soft, bunny-like characters identifiable by a flower over one eye — has tapped into the global appetite for designer toys and blind-box culture.
Hendry is not represented by a gallery. She produces, distributes and sells her work independently, which is a significant part of why her events feel unlike anything else in the art world.
Hong Kong: Flower Market at Art Basel
Henderson Land x CJ Hendry — Flower Market
Dates: 19 to 22 March 2026 Venue: AIA Vitality Park, Central Harbourfront, 33 Man Kwong Street, Hong Kong Admission: Free with advance registration
This was the Flower Market's first-ever appearance in Asia, and the timing was deliberate. Presented by Henderson Land to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the installation landed at the heart of Hong Kong Art Month, running concurrently with Art Basel Hong Kong. Public registration sessions sold out within a single day of the announcement.
The Hong Kong edition took the form of a lush hedge maze leading into a greenhouse-style pavilion filled with more than 150,000 plush flowers across 26 designs. Two flowers were created exclusively for Hong Kong: the Henderson Flower, commissioned to mark the developer's golden jubilee, and the Bauhinia, a soft-to-touch version of the city's iconic national bloom. The installation marked not only the Flower Market's Asian debut but also the most high-profile partnership Hendry has undertaken to date.
Singapore: Flower Market and JuJu World — Southeast Asia Debut
Flower Market — Southeast Asia Premiere
Dates: 10 to 14 June 2026 Venue: IMBA Theatre Gallery, 18 Marina Gardens Drive, Singapore 018953 Admission: Free; one complimentary plush flower per visitor; additional flowers from SGD 7
JuJu World — World Premiere
Dates: 20 June to 18 July 2026 Venue: IMBA Theatre, 18 Marina Gardens Drive, Singapore 018953 Admission: Ticketed; walk-ins welcome
Singapore represents the most ambitious double-bill of Hendry's career to date. In the space of five weeks, IMBA Theatre at Gardens by the Bay hosts both the Southeast Asian premiere of the Flower Market and the world premiere of JuJu World — the first inflatable experience built around the JuJu collectible series.
The Singapore Flower Market features 30 flower varieties, including three designed exclusively for this edition: the Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim, Singapore's national flower; the Raffles' Pitcher Plant; and the Singapore Ginger Flower. As with previous editions, the experience is deliberately interactive. Visitors are encouraged to wander, pick flowers, and assemble their own bouquet to take home — a philosophy that sits at the heart of what makes Hendry's work accessible to audiences who would not typically set foot in a contemporary art space.
JuJu World is something altogether new. The experience transforms the space into a large-scale inflatable environment built around the JuJu characters. Singapore hosts the world premiere of the installation and also introduces an exclusive yellow colourway for the series — a first for JuJu. Limited large-format JuJus are being made exclusively for this run and will not be available elsewhere once the experience closes. The collectibles angle is central to Hendry's strategy: pieces produced for specific cities in specific quantities create genuine scarcity, which in turn sustains the secondary market and deepens the connection between the artist and each local audience.
JuJu was first unveiled at Phillips Auction House in Hong Kong, where the space was transformed into a pink-saturated supermarket environment with foam floors and blind-box bag charms available in 24 colourways. Since that launch, the characters have appeared in Valentine's Day and Easter editions, steadily building a collector community. Singapore's yellow JuJu World is the concept's most ambitious realisation yet.
Brisbane: Flower Shop
Brisbane Flower Shop
Dates: 25 June to 12 July 2026 Venue: 1 Arthur St, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane Pricing: Each stem AUD 10; every tenth stem is free
Hendry returns to her home city with a Flower Shop format — a more intimate, retail-focused incarnation of the Flower Market concept. Rather than a one-off immersive installation, the Brisbane iteration is structured as a functioning pop-up shop where visitors can browse and purchase individual stems at their own pace over a sustained three-week run. The tenth stem in any purchase is complimentary, which adds a playful loyalty mechanic that has become a signature of the Flower Shop format. For Brisbane audiences, this is a rare opportunity to engage with Hendry's work in the city where she grew up.
Online: JuJu Mismatched Release
JuJu Mismatched — Online Drop
Date: 1 July 2026 Release time: 7pm New York time Channel: cjhendrystudio.com
Timed to run alongside the Singapore and Brisbane physical events, the JuJu Mismatched release is an online-only drop expanding the collectible range. Hendry has built a sophisticated direct-to-consumer operation that treats online releases with the same event-style energy as her physical installations — countdown timers, appointment-based availability, and limited quantities that typically sell through within minutes. The Mismatched edition suggests a new colourway or combination pairing that sits outside the main JuJu colour family, though full details are confirmed closer to the release date.
Hong Kong: JuJu World
JuJu World — Hong Kong
Dates: 23 July to 16 August 2026 Venue: Pacific Place Mall, Hong Kong
Following the world premiere in Singapore, JuJu World travels to Hong Kong for an extended run at Pacific Place, one of the city's premier luxury retail destinations. The Hong Kong edition runs for just under four weeks and represents the concept's first outing in a high-footfall mall environment, bringing it into contact with a different audience to the arts-district visitors of earlier Hendry events in the city. Details on the Hong Kong-specific colourways and exclusive pieces are expected to be announced closer to opening.
New York: Mere Mortals at Phillips
Mere Mortals — Phillips Auction
Dates: 24 to 26 July 2026 Venue: 432 Park Ave, New York, NY Online release: 26 July 2026, 7pm New York time
Hendry returns to the auction world for Mere Mortals, a dedicated presentation at Phillips' New York headquarters on Park Avenue. Phillips has been a consistent partner in introducing Hendry's work to the secondary market and to collectors who move within traditional fine art channels. The three-day event culminates in an online release, allowing international collectors to participate simultaneously. Mere Mortals follows in the tradition of Hendry's concept-driven series — each body of work built around a unifying visual or cultural idea — and represents her most significant New York gallery-adjacent appearance of the year.
New York: Pastel in Collaboration with Salon 94
Pastel — A Collaboration with Salon 94
Dates: 6 to 23 August 2026 Venue: 3 E 89th St, New York, NY Online release: 9 August 2026, 7pm New York time
Pastel is Hendry's most anticipated new body of work of 2026, developed in partnership with Salon 94, the respected New York gallery whose programme includes some of the most significant names in contemporary art. For Hendry, who has consistently operated outside the gallery system, this collaboration is notable. The Upper East Side location — a short walk from the Metropolitan Museum of Art — places the work in direct conversation with the broader art world in a way that few of her previous events have done. The exhibition runs for nearly three weeks, with an online release on 9 August making new works available to collectors globally. Full details of the Pastel series are expected to be revealed in the weeks before opening.
New York: Flower Market at Rockefeller Center
Flower Market — Rockefeller Center
Dates: 24 to 27 September 2026 Venue: Rockefeller Center, New York, NY
The Flower Market returns to New York for a four-day run at one of the most iconic locations in the city. Rockefeller Center has hosted landmark public art moments and its open plazas and international tourist footfall make it an ideal setting for Hendry's brand of accessible, spectacular installation. The New York Flower Market previously caused significant disruption on Roosevelt Island when it had to be moved to a warehouse after crowds overwhelmed the original venue on its first day. The Rockefeller Center edition is presumably designed with that scale of demand in mind. Exclusive New York-specific flower designs are expected to be unveiled as part of the event.
How to Stay Informed
Hendry announces events, registrations and online drops primarily through her Instagram account (@cj_hendry) and her studio website at cjhendrystudio.com. Registrations for free events like the Flower Market typically open several weeks in advance and sell out rapidly — the Hong Kong edition in March 2026 was fully registered within a single day. For ticketed events such as JuJu World, details are released closer to opening. Online drops follow New York time and sell through quickly; following the studio account and enabling notifications is the most reliable way to be alerted.
No events beyond September 2026 have been announced at the time of writing. Given the pace of Hendry's programme in recent years, further dates for late 2026 and into 2027 are expected to be confirmed in the coming months.
All dates and details are accurate as of June 2026. Check cjhendrystudio.com for the most current information on registrations, ticketing and online releases.
