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About the Juror

Deborah Bright is Professor of Photography and Art History at the Rhode Island School of Design where she administered the MFA program in Photography from 1996 to 2001.

Her groundbreaking collection of images and writing on photographies and sexualities, The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire (Routledge, 1998) was a finalist for the Lambda Award in Visual Arts. She was a 1995-96 Fellow at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, and in 1999, Bright curated the exhibition Shattered Mirrors, Broken Windows for the Photographic Resource Center in Boston. Her photographic work has been widely exhibited and is represented by the Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston.

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Images of the Artists' Work

Just a sampling of the many works on display as part of this exhibit...

			Rhode Island Artists
		Above: Rebecca Siemering, Small Platter, sugar, glue, plastic
		Left: Claudia Flynn, Self Portrait With Bindi, digital print with bindi in Indian frame
		Above: Yolanda Del Amo, Untitled, 1/12, C-print, 30" x 40"
		Left: Hilary Treadwell, Her Legs/HerShoes, contemporary daguerreotype, quarter plate

		Left: Dayna Mondello, Who's Eating Who?, twigs, yarn, found material, acrylic epoxy, artifical plants (Mondello is currently creating a site-specific installation for GIRL ART NOW; the piece in this image was installed in the artist's studio)
		Right: MJ Viano Crowe, Wichita Girl, mixed media on Fabiano paper

Other Artists
	Above: Miruna Dragan, The Fertile Void I , silk ribbons, hat pins, site-specific installation
	Right: Lisa D'Innocenzo, Thrift, horse-hair on found linen textile
	Left: Laura Hartford, Eric With Flowers, archival ink jet print

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About Hera Gallery

Hera Gallery began as a not-for-profit women's artist cooperative in 1974, three years after feminist art scholar Linda Nochlin published her influential essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" in the January 1971 issue of Art News magazine. The essay reflected a growing general dissatisfaction with socially sanctioned discrimination in all areas of the culture on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation at a time when cooperatively-run galleries for women artists were popping up all over the country.

Hera Gallery, like ARC and Artemesia in Chicago, Womenhouse in Los Angeles, and AIR and SOHO 20 in New York City, offered women artists a supportive alternative space to show their work during an era when it was often difficult to gain representation by commercial galleries, or have their work displayed and collected by museums. Of these galleries, Hera has the distinction of being the only one in a non-urban setting.

During that time of challenging viewpoints and new ideas, the feminist movement influenced
art making in concept, form and process, including the work of the members of the Hera co-operative. Processes and materials that had been associated with "women's work," such as quilting and needlework, invigorated painting and sculpture with a fresh vision while simultaneously reintroducing narrative content to the austere minimalism of the seventies.

The lasting effect of the experiments of feminist art on contemporary art making cannot be underestimated. Boundaries between disciplines are more fluid than ever before -- witness the many MFA programs across the country which offer programs of study in "new media" or "new genres." Installation art is now old hat, and it is acceptable, even expected, for the artist to use the most unconventional materials possible in the creation of her work.

The artists of Hera have been producing and presenting contemporary art locally for thirty years. At Hera we believe that the equity of feminist values apply to every person, and we welcome both male and female artists in all stages of their careers.

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By Cynthia Farnell, with contributions by the artists

This exhibition is brought to you with the support of the Friends of Hera and
The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.
 
Hera Gallery is handicapped accessible.