Alumni Exhibition:
Holly Heckler
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 11, 4 to 6 p.m.
Show Dates: July 11 to Aug. 7
Location: Pratt Munson Gallery
Exhibition Statement
Paradigm/Delusion/Chaos/Luck
This body of work illustrates some of the most painful experiences I've endured, delivering narratives through memories and my present. Shortly after my father passed from cancer I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Left mentally and physically unable to paint, it felt as if I had been absorbed into a broken reality and no longer had any autonomy or control over my life. I was grasping at anything to stay grounded and found myself making simple crafts from my past, like creating cordage and knitting. I had discovered a way to stay afloat.
I have been able to paint again, although trying to write my message in oils doesn't always feel strong enough. My imagination was stagnant in that medium. I had to learn to release myself from my own limitations and get back to creating. What I create no matter the format is still art, even if it isn't mapped out on a canvas.
Having death so close led me deeper into surrealism and I found that painting alone doesn't capture my new reality. Under this new paradigm multimedia offers more flexibility. Incorporating crafting and fine art while leaning on surrealism has granted me freedom.
I've found myself taking a step back and recontextualizing my experiences in order to move forward. Untangling my reality.
Artist Statement
Holly B. Heckler is an oil painter living and working in Western NY who creates unnatural but botanical landscape paintings inspired by our rapidly changing ecosystems. Her paintings are conglomerates of observation, memory, collected momentos, and imagination. These invented scenarios evoke a wide array of emotions ranging from absolute hopefulness and possibility, to a sense of extinction and desolation. The narratives are usually that of an artifact or plant, displaced by human intervention. There is a sense of stillness and calm despite the underlying transience of the subject(s.) One wants to look.
Free and Open to the Public
The Pratt Munson Gallery is located at Munson Museum of Art at 310 Genesee St. Utica, N.Y.
Gallery Hours
Tuesday to Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday: noon to 5 p.m.
