Pratt Munson alumna Holly Heckler ’11 opens exhibition at Munson

Utica, N.Y. — Munson will host a Pratt Munson Alumni Exhibition by oil painter Holly Heckler, Class of 2011, titled “Paradigm/Delusion/Chaos/Luck,” opening Saturday, July 11, with a free reception from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Pratt Munson Gallery in Fountain Elms. This exhibition,  on view through Aug. 7,  is free and open to the public.

Discover Heckler’s emotionally powerful work exploring memory, healing, and resilience. Blending surrealist oil painting with handcrafted elements, Heckler transforms personal experiences of loss and illness into deeply moving works that balance hope, vulnerability, and imagination.

“This body of work illustrates some of the most painful experiences I’ve endured, delivering narratives through memories and my present,” says Heckler. “Shortly after my father passed from cancer I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Having death so close led me deeper into surrealism and I found that painting alone doesn’t capture my new reality. I’ve found myself taking a step back and recontextualizing my experiences in order to move forward.”

Heckler lives and works in Western New York creating 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.

For more information, visit munson.art/heckler.

For media inquiries or more information, please contact Katie Voce, communications manager, at 315-797-0000 ext. 2147 or via email at kvoce@munson.art.

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