Holly B. Heckler

Holly B. Heckler is an oil painter living and working in Western New York State who creates unnatural but botanical landscapes inspired by our rapidly changing ecosystems. Her paintings are conglomerates of observation, memory, collected mementos, and imagination.

These invented scenarios evoke a wide array of emotions ranging from
complete 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.

What is the biggest inspiration for your pieces over time or for your current work?

Currently, my paintings have been inspired on the surface by my backyard and gardens; I love to find little moments that are usually overlooked and turn that into my subject. Although, on a grander scale, my work leans heavily on my inner cynicism. The more time I spend in my studio, the more I focus on current events, world history, what is yet to come, wild apocalyptic dreams of mine, and symbolism.

What is your technique for creating?

It honestly varies. Sometimes I will wake up in the morning and have the exact imagery I need in my mind, and other times I will come across something so intriguing that I need to preserve its likeness; from that, a painting will grow. With each idea, though, I also have a specific feeling I try to capture, however, disguised that may be.

What is your favorite & least favorite part about professional art?

My favorite part about professional art is that we are considered professionals, and society still has regard for us. On the opposite end, so many artists have and are taken advantage of when it comes to rights and finances.

What is your go-to work/creative playlist?

I most likely am listening to the radio or podcasts. Musically though, I love storytellers and dreamers. Built to Spill, Bill Callahan, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, The Decemberists, Jason Isbell, Townes Van Zandt, and Julia Jacklin.

Who/what are some of your key artistic influences?

I am largely influenced by art history. I eat up all of the nuance and symbolism of the past and present, from the middle ages to the Dutch Masters to Balthus to Ai Weiwei.

If you weren't an artist, what would you be? 

I would love to work in science somehow. Ecology may be, but so many worlds are cohabiting on our planet.

If you ruled the world, what would your first order of business be?

Education. Not as in missionary education, where cultures and ways of life are destroyed, but education for and of this current society. The history of this planet, how we have gotten to where we are, and why post-industrial revolution. We are due for a major paradigm shift, and I do believe it is beginning to happen. Climate, toxins, food origin and manufacturing, chemicals, technology, all of these things we surround ourselves with in our homes, we know so little about as a society. We just put it into the shopping cart.

What is your dream project?

I would love to be a traveling artist. I could spend a few weeks in each location and make paintings in those and of those landscapes.