Senior Art Major Earns a 2026 ‘Best of SUNY’ Award for Painting with Personal Significance

A SUNY Plattsburgh art major whose painting took a Best of SUNY award in the 2026 Student Art Exhibition said his talent would have remained hidden if not for a community college instructor who encouraged him to transfer to the university two years ago.

Brayden Munn, a senior from Saranac Lake, N.Y., said he attended North Country Community College for its childhood education track.

“It was my ‘safe’ plan,” he said. “Then I took a painting class with (NCCC adjunct instructor) Susan Hoffer. She said I had a lot of talent and should transfer (to SUNY Plattsburgh). I’ve only been doing fine art painting for two years. I would never have thought I could do it.”

Bright Kontor Osei, SUNY Plattsburgh assistant professor in the Department of Art and Design, had faith in him as well.

“(Brayden’s) win is a clear testament to the quality of professors we have in our department and the quality of instruction we provide to our students,” he said. “I believe (Munn’s) achievement shows what is possible when our students receive the support, mentorship and resources they need.”

Munn’s winning oil painting, “Bunny,” is a moody piece depicting a young woman, reaching for a glass of wine from a table on which sits a vintage stuffed bunny, a child’s toy — her toy — from long ago. A second glass of wine sits near Bunny’s foot, almost as if the woman is sharing a drink with her old friend, the way a child would play “tea party” with their stuffed animals.

Munn didn’t mind admitting he had a bit of the imposter syndrome when he heard that some 150 artworks from all 64 SUNY campuses had been submitted to the juried competition.

“It’s a very strange feeling,” he said. “It’s easy for me to feel like I’m an imposter. I’ve not be in this very long. It’s not my ego — this is a huge, huge honor. But this is validating — I’m just excited to be in the show. It’s amazing to think that I was picked. It wasn’t even on my radar.”

He gave credit to Hoffer for teaching him about the process of painting while praising Osei for giving him “context” to his work.

“Bright has shown me what galleries are looking for, the time it takes to get the work done. He also asks ‘why’ — what did the work mean? Am I painting portraits just to paint, or is something else really behind it? I’m so grateful to him for that,” Munn said.

It was Osei’s mentorship that helped encourage and prepare Munn to enter his painting in the competition.

“Keep in mind that approximately 150 artworks were submitted from all 64 SUNY campuses, including schools such as Purchase and Albany,” Osei said. “For Brayden’s painting to receive the top award among that pool is something we should be very proud of.”

As in “Bunny,” Munn paints people who mean the most to him with the things they hold most dear using two large-scale canvases, painting the person on one side while connecting the person to the possession on the other. In “Bunny,” his girlfriend poses with the stuffed animal her parents got her the day she was born.

In his studio on the third floor of Myers Fine Arts Building, Munn has two large-scale portraits going — both of his grandfathers and both with the things that mean the most.

“My grandfather on my dad’s side is in his 1955 Chevy Nomad wagon that belonged to his father when he was a kid,” Munn said. “It was wrecked in the 1970s, and he rebuilt it in his garage down to the last detail.”

The other work in progress is of his late grandfather on his mom’s side, a chopper pilot named Chuck. In a photo his grandmother gave him, Munn is capturing his grandfather in his flight suit sitting by the thing that was very important in his life — his helicopter.

Munn plans to do a series of meaningful-possessions portraits.

“It feels good to paint people I know and love,” he said.

To see “Bunny,” along with the other Best of SUNY winners, visit https://www.suny.edu/systemartprograms/chancellor-gallery/.

— Story, Photos by Associate Director of Communications Gerianne Downs