Fredric Snitzer Gallery is pleased to present Heat index, a summer group exhibition featuring works by Hernan Bas, Leo Castañeda, Edison Peñafiel, Marielle Plaisir, and Ema Ri.

The term "heat index" describes the relationship between temperature and humidity, a measure of how conditions are physically experienced rather than objectively recorded. This distinction serves as a point of departure for the exhibition examining the ways individuals navigate environments shaped by personal histories, built narratives, or systems of power. Across painting, drawing, and video the artists explore states of visibility and concealment, displacement and belonging, and transformation.

Together, the works in Heat index suggest that environments are never neutral. Whether shaped by climate, memory, social structures, or lived experience, they exert pressures that influence how individuals see themselves and others. The exhibition proposes heat as both a literal and metaphorical condition, an invisible force that intensifies, alters, and reveals. Through layered narratives, and imagined worlds, Heat index brings together artists whose practices invite viewers to move between observation and participation. The exhibition explores how perception, belonging, and identity are continually shaped by the places we inhabit and the stories that shape our understanding.

Heat index serves as a precursor to our fall and spring programming, a preview of the conversations and artistic voices that will continue to unfold throughout the gallery's fall and spring exhibitions.