Grand Island artists to shine at show

By Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

A group of six Grand Island artists is launching an art show next week at the Buffalo Launch Club, 503 E. River Road.

“Island Art Exhibit” will take place from 4-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23, and from 2-8 Saturday, Feb. 24. The exhibit is free and open to the public, and exhibited works are for sale.

Karen McDonough has said her goal as an artist is “to combine drawing and painting while capturing the light, weather and change of seasons.”

McDonough has a bachelor’s degree in art from State University College at Buffalo. She has exhibited at The Burchfield-Penney Art Center, the Castellani Art Museum and the East Aurora Art Society Outdoor Fine Art Exhibit and Sale.

McDonough organized the show, along with Maria Laurendi, an artist who is also a Realtor.

Laurendi said art brings a balance to her life: “Painting is very, very soothing and very calming.”

She said she has always been involved in arts and crafts, but it wasn’t until 2011 that she discovered her love for oil painting.

Art exhibit organizer Karen McDonough said, “The Elm - 7-30 Contrast,” an acrylic painting, “is my impression of the sunset on a rare and beautiful tree.” (submitted photo)

Laurendi studied with Joan Horn at Partners in Art for more than 10 years and has participated in several art shows, including Lewiston, Allentown, Riverwalk and the Castellani Art Museum. She has won several awards for her landscapes, still life paintings and portraits.

Her daughter-in-law, Danielle Laurendi, balances art and motherhood. She and her husband have two children, 3 and 5.

“I’m always looking for those beautiful, special moments,” Laurendi said. “Then I transform them into something equally as special. Something breathtaking. Something heart-stirring for you to hang in your house.”

She graduated in 2012 with an art degree in painting at Alfred University

“I love painting special moments, something a little whimsical or a breathtaking sunrise,” Laurendi said. She is available for commissions.

Deborah Rice is a member of the Buffalo Niagara Arts Association and has been an artist for more than 20 years.

She is currently working in watercolor. She said what inspires her art is “beautiful things that have meaning to me.”

Rice has won several awards for her work and has shown pieces in local galleries. Her training includes oil, charcoal, pen and ink, pastel, water color and colored pencil.

After raising four children, she studied with teachers who include Joan Horn, Sean Patrick Daley, Jody Ziehm and Kathy Giles. She lives on Grand Island with her husband of 45 years.

Paula Sciuk said in her artist statement, “It is preferable to be more intimate with the world, to observe and contemplate what is before me, capturing a vanishing moment through my lens-based and field sound work. It is solitary and often lonely work, taking great patience, in environments that are mostly unpredictable, sometimes inhospitable and more often, luminous.”

Her art reflects a strong thread of “environmental advocacy, activism, outreach, protection of marine habitat and wildlife.”

A photo by Paula Sciuk, “Abendrot,” is an example of the large-scale photography she pursues in travels all over the world. “My focus is based on liminality – the threshold of in between, that middle space where surfaces meet and the order of things and time has been suspended – while exploring themes of fragility and impermanence,” Sciuk writes of her work. (Submitted photo)

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Sciuk, a native of Western New York, is a multidisciplinary artist. She completed a bachelor’s in design at Buffalo State University, where she also studied painting and sculpture.

Since 2007, her large-scale photographic images have been shown in numerous exhibitions, including the Louvre in Paris and Times Square in New York City. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the Burchfield Penney Art Center and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Grand Island artist Kath Schifano works on a plein air painting. (Submitted photo)

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Kath Schifano’s plein air style is painting done outdoors.

“My plein air paintings capture the sights and environment wherever I travel,” she said. “Artwork created outdoors communicates the sparkle and nature of the day it was created, the weather, the light and the location. You see what I have experienced.

“The act of mixing and choosing pigments to create paintings takes me away from daily distractions. I can paint alone for hours, listening to rustling leaves, birds, and distant train whistles, taking pleasure in the whimsies of nature.”

Schifano is a board member of International Plein Air Painters, Niagara Frontier Plein Air Painters and Buffalo Niagara Art Association. Her oil and pastel art is in public and private collections in 34 states and on five continents. She maintains studios on Grand Island and at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center in Niagara Falls.