Heather Heitzenrater grew up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and now lives and works in Pittsburgh. She earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and has since built an active career as an exhibiting artist, educator, and scenic artist.

Her work has been shown nationally at venues including the Erie Art Museum, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and Baton Rouge Gallery, and has been featured in Poet Artist Magazine, Pikchur Magazine, Minus 37, Create! Magazine, and Beautiful Bizarre. Heather has received multiple awards, presented artist talks, curated and juried local exhibitions, and is an active member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. She also teaches figurative workshops at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and works as a scenic artist for ScareHouse. She and her husband, artist Christopher Boring, share a studio at Radiant Hall’s Susquehanna location.

Heather’s visual world is deeply influenced by her lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy—especially stories of portals and distant realms that promise transformation and discovery. That sense of crossing into the unknown runs through her paintings, which combine the human figure with reflective Mylar. Its liquid-silver surface bends light and color, distorting reality much like a mirror, creating shifting, abstract reflections that blur the boundary between what is real and what is imagined.