Nancy Hollinghurst ( born 1978) is a realist painter of still life and figurative works. Originally from Atlanta, GA, Nancy has lived half her life in the New York City area, where she received a BFA in Illustration (2002) from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in painting (2008) from the New York Academy of Art. She was granted a 4 month “Artist’s Grand Tour” of Europe in 2005, awarded the Prince of Wales/Forbes Foundation painting fellowship in 2008, and received a 2022 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Hollinghurst has participated in various group exhibitions in galleries across the United States, notably the 2017 Women Painting Women traveling museum exhibition.

Artist Statement - As a greater artistic theme, I’m exploring memory and its relationship to reality & fantasy. As both subject and observer, I'm particularly interested in the behavior of collecting and the emotional involvement in the pursuit of objects tied to memory. As an artist, my livelihood relies on collectors, so I’m deeply curious about the hierarchy of assigned, or imagined, value and power. Collectors assign these properties to the objects and people they pursue because they provide joy, beauty, and relief while facilitating an escape into the magical world of their design. 

As primarily a figurative painter, flowers pose a new challenge. I enjoy the conversations that arise when contemplating the emotional duality that old objects innately project while witnessing the fleeting life and beauty of fresh-cut flowers. The vases are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, so I began playing with scale, painting on canvas five to ten feet tall, placing the viewer eye to eye with the head vase, and inviting a conversation about time and reality.

Pratorhurst / pray-ter-hurst

a combination of my maiden name Prator and married name Hollinghurst.