Hera Gallery proudly presents a members exhibition featuring Molly Kaderka, Elizabeth O’Connor, Alex Perrine, Marne Snyder, Marisa Squire, and Elizabeth Witkun! This exhibition explores transformation, growth, and new perspectives through material, process, and imagination.
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 6th, from 6-8pm!
Artist Talk and Closing Reception: Saturday, September 25th from 7pm via ZOOM.
Marne Snyder
Artist Statement
For the last 20 years I have been working in multi media collage, using Figures, Fabrics, Paper, and found objects. I let the materials lead me and assemble disparate elements, working in color, pattern, scale and story. I like to create pieces in which fantasy, humor and playfulness reign.
“Collage artist, Marne Snyder, has been able to capture the freedom and playfulness of childhood imagination in her work. Her 3-dimensional collages tap into this long buried ability to untether ourselves from our conscious self and let our subconscious take over. The interesting objects she has collected over the years wait in her studio for their meaning and personality to be revealed. The making of her art requires intuitive decision making, moving her objects around onto fabrics, textures and colors until reaching their proper place and story. The unconventional domesticity and illustrative quality invite you into her dream world of free association.”
Alexander Perrine
Rhode Island-based sculptor Alex Perrine began his current long-running series, Bodies of Waste, in 2007. In Bodies, Alex works with trash and found objects to create lifelike human figures. When not working on Bodies of Waste, Alex has also fabricated and installed outdoor and indoor Green Walls (vertical gardens), with a notable installation at the Denver International Airport outpost of Root Down, a popular Denver-based restaurant. He has fabricated and installed privately owned outdoor firepits, outdoor projector screens, railings, and fences in Denver and around Colorado.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1983 and raised in Jamestown, Alex’s catalog of artistic influences began at a young age. His mother, Susan Perrine, is a fiber artist; she and her community of artists and artisans served as early inspirations. Alex also credits his art teachers at Jamestown Elementary and Middle schools with shaping his nascent vision, which was furthered by a chance encounter with trash artist Thomas Deniniger at the Newport Art Museum in 1999 and by his college professor (and fellow sculptor) Duncan Hewitt.
As a senior at the University of Southern Maine, Alex was awarded the Art Discipline Award, as well as an award for Recognition of Excellence and Artistic Growth from the University’s Art Department. He graduated in 2007, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on sculpture.
Alex first exhibited work in his Rhode Island hometown in 1995, when he was the International Peace Poster Contest winner at the Jamestown Lions Club. He has since exhibited work in Maine, Colorado, and, most recently, in Shibuya, Japan. He is currently exhibiting several of his Bodies of Waste sculptures at the Ross-Barnum branch of the Denver Public Library. He is also the Project Director for a community art project in the Barnum neighborhood, working with community members and students from the local elementary school to create a large image using found objects. Alex is planning two pop-up exhibits of photos of his Bodies of Waste series in Tokyo, Japan, for December 2019.
Bodies of Waste
Daily, an American generates almost 4.5 pounds of trash -- more than a ton Annually.
Will all of our trash simply outlast us? Or will it overwhelm the environment and ultimately destroy us?
These are the questions artist Alex Perrine seeks to raise through his ongoing project Bodies of Waste, a series of sculptures created using discarded and found objects and based on the human figure. Alex most often finds his materials in the streets and alleys of his neighborhood, which he then weaves, twists, ties, bends, and wraps together to create his works.
Alex draws the inspiration for many of the figures in Bodies from Classical Antiquity. By evoking these elegant figures in forms made of trash, Alex creates a dichotomy between beauty and excessive waste. What objects do you recognize when you view one of these sculptures? What do they remind you of?
The objects are thoughtfully placed, and at times intentionally humorous. A scrotum is made of a dog's chew toy; teeth are made from a saw blade. Wires and cables remind us of veins and arteries. Trash bags and pieces of rubber become fat and muscle. Food utensils and containers show us man's insatiable appetite. Portions of mirrors, shiny metal, and sunglasses reflect the viewer's image (and, perhaps, their culpability) back onto the sculpture.
By showcasing objects people recognize from their daily lives, these sculptures become more personal, visually engaging, and thought-provoking. This body of work illustrates our dependency on the material world, and the harm done to the natural world -- and ultimately, to ourselves -- by the careless use and disposal of those materials.
Through his art, Alex asks the viewer to think about humanity’s effect on the natural world, and provoke discussion about trash, recycling, repurposing, and the impact we have on the environment.
Elizabeth O’Connor
Elizabeth O’Connor is a fine art photographer based in southern Rhode Island. She first discovered infrared photography back in her film days and was so captivated by the mystical and otherworldly look of it that she felt like she had discovered a secret that the landscape had been trying to hide from her. Her quest for artistic inspiration and desire to apply her knowledge of film photography to the digital darkroom led her to achieve a Certificate of Photography from the RISD/CE program. She rediscovered infrared photography in its digital form and although she continues to use her traditional digital camera, she has noticed that she much prefers the surprise and drama of the mystical images that the infrared camera reveals to her.
Daylight at Dump Beach
The entrance to Block Island’s West Beach is located at the end of the same dirt road that takes you to the island’s recycling and trash transfer station. My first trip there was in 2015 and as a landscape photographer I was thrilled to discover such a beautiful beach! A view of the North Light lighthouse is to the right and a lovely stretch of beach meanders off to the left and then disappears. The sun sets directly across from the water edge and it’s a frequent destination to watch the sunset or join a group of friends for a bon fire. But where are the beachgoers on this sunny summer day?
Ten years later West Beach has been significantly cleaned up, but the memory of the harm caused cannot be easily erased by bulldozers and rakes. The walking path to the beach is still littered with shards of glass and metal fragments which brightly sparkle in the sunlight but also remind you that walking barefoot is not an option. It feels like an intentional barrier placed by inhabitants stuck in a place they call home by no fault of their own. There is still a story to tell.
This collection of photographs was brought into the physical memory through curiosity, imagination, humor, and the recognition of the landscape’s desire to be acknowledged for the violation of its natural self.
The landscape is firmly declaring - I will not let you forget what happened to me, and I will remain resilient, beautiful, and at peace.
Molly Kaderka
Molly Kaderka is a painter working in the expanded field of painting, which spans the disciplines of printmaking, drawing and painting. Her work is inspired by her deep interest in natural phenomena and in human and earth history.
Kaderka holds a BFA in Painting and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been shown nationally, including in solo exhibitions at the Haw Contemporary in Kansas City and Jamestown Art Center in Rhode Island, and in group shows at Morgan Lehman Gallery (NYC), Asya Geisberg Gallery (NYC), Attleborough Museum of Art (MA), Newport Art Museum (RI), Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, and most recently, in The Soul Is AWanderer, at Oklahoma Contemporary. Her work has been featured most recently in articles in Hyperallergic (January 2024) and in the Paris-based Le Quotidien de L’Arte (December, 2023).
Recent awards include the Grand Award at the Delta Triennial at the Arkansas Museum of Art, Hargis Fellowship at the Doel Reed Center in Taos (NM), the Walter Feldman Fellowship, issued by Arts and Business Council of Boston; the Visual Arts Artist Fellowship Grant issued by the Somerville (MA) Arts Council, and an Inspiration Grant from the Kansas City Artist Alliance. She has also received two research grants from Oklahoma State University.
Kaderka has taught painting and drawing at Kansas City Art Institute, Maryland Institute College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Oklahoma State University, and is currently an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University, where she teaches painting.
Artist Statement
My artistic work employs the genre of landscape to evoke the awe and mystery of the natural world and to inspire viewers to reflect on their own place within it. Through large-scale paintings and murals, I have sought to reimagine the traditional format of the landscape in a way that invites a different encounter with both celestial and terrestrial realms.
Traditional landscape paintings rely on the intersection of ground and sky at a horizon line located at some distance from the viewer. This is an entirely illusory framework. Though it reflects our experience, as earthbound creatures, of living within the bounds of the sky and the ground— constantly beneath the one and above the other—it involves a perpetually distorted perspective of both. We sense the ground as flat and solid and static beneath us and the sky as a giant domed ceiling above, yet neither realm actually has those characteristics. The earth, in fact, is curved beneath us and in a constant state of change (as the geological record shows) and the sky is simply our window into the vast universe.
In contrast to the linear, human-centered orientation of traditional landscape painting, my work compresses the landscape by eliminating linear perspective and reconfiguring the horizon line into a circular composition, requiring the viewer to focus simultaneously on the ground and the sky and not on the distance between them. This radical shift in perspective creates a kind of immediacy with and a sense of immersion in the physical world.
My artistic practice is both inspired by and informed by geology and astronomy - the scientific studies of our Earth and sky. I integrate observational study of rock and sky with follow-up research on the latest discoveries in both fields to uncover new interpretations of landscape. Through printmaking, drawing, and painting, I create representations of specific geological forms and objects in space and assemble them into single compositions or installations.
The work attempts to search for and evoke for my viewers elements of the sublime. To experience the sublime is to simultaneously feel and cognitively understand both the serendipity and the insignificance of one’s own existence, and to submit to this experience in the face of something
Elizabeth Witkun
Elizabeth Witkun began her textile journey towards the end of her studies at the University of Rhode Island in 2023.
Growing up she had an appreciation for knitting and textiles due to her grandma knitting everywhere and anywhere. Her grandmother tried to teach her, but it only ended with Elizabeth deciding knitting wasn't for her.
Later during her college career she decided to try the medium once again. Elizabeth started collecting yarn from past family members, thrift stores, and reuse collectives. She self taught herself crochet by making hats, sweaters, and sculptures. With a year of crochet skills, a short car ride, a box of yarn, and knitting needles from a professor at URI, she revisited the art of knitting.
Interlaced Beginnings: From Skein to Sweater
A visual timeline of making a sweater each month of 2025. While working on each sweater I chose to leave minor mistakes as a reminder of trial and error and to showcase my growth over time.
(Star Sweater) The only crochet sweater of this collection and the example of where I started with textile designs at the end of 2024. The sweater is a free hand design inspired by comic book characters' clothing. Made from 100°/o acrylic from my Oma's storage.
(The First Sweater) As titled this is the first knit sweater I made. 100°/o acrylic donated to me by an art professor at URI. I made this sweater free hand by making separate panels then stitching them together. This was a challenging first yarn to work with, but it perfectly hides all the imperfections.
(Twisted Beginnings) This was my first raglan sweater attempt. I started with twisted stitches and quickly realized. I decided to leave the twisted stitches in as they highlight how mistakes are a part of the process. I fell in love with a raglan sweater and how it's all made in one instead of panel work all the time.
(Cardigan Challenge) As my confidence grew in the medium I was ready to give myself a challenge. I was prepared to completely undo the whole project at any moment, but once the piece started to come together I told myself there's no going back. There's a few mistakes here or there, however this is one of my favorite projects so far in my journey.
(Star Sweater 2.0) A remake of the crochet sweater in knit form. After the successful Cardigan Challange, I wanted to try embroidery on top of knitting and was overly satisfied with the outcome. This was a project to showcase my growth to myself. I've continued to make a sweater every month (or so) as a practice for meditation and to grow my skills.
Marisa Squire
Marisa Squire is an artist originally from New York, now based in Rhode Island. She began her studies at the University of Rhode Island as a Marine Biology major before shifting her focus to the arts, graduating with a BFA in 2022.
In her senior year, she interned at Hera Gallery, where she helped organize the 2022 URI Senior Seminar exhibition. Later that year, she was invited to step into the role of Assistant Director at Hera Gallery, where she has remained ever since, recently serving as Interim Director.
Marisa’s creative practice began in childhood with drawing and has since expanded into sculpture, photography, graphic design, and digital media. Her current work explores mark-making, patterns, and textures across traditional and digital mediums. She continues to experiment with materials and techniques in pursuit of visually compelling and thoughtful work.
Artist Statement
I have always been drawn to the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it, especially those that are fragile, endangered, or at risk of disappearing. My work focuses on marine animals and corals as a way to bring attention to their beauty while also reminding us of their vulnerability in the face of pollution and human impact. I often create with what is available or leftover, such as a frame found at Savers or clay saved from a community event, to highlight the connection between resourcefulness, waste, and sustainability.
These pieces carry a quiet reminder. Every choice we make, every piece of plastic we throw away, ripples outward, affecting not only ocean life but in the end, us.