Winners Showcase I - Jan. 16, 2020 - Feb. 6, 2021
Lucia Alberti is a retired owner of a display company, where she would conceptualize and design major holiday décor programs to the shopping center industry. Now retired, with time to try her hand at painting, she enjoys painting landscapes in acrylics. Lucia finds it most comfortable to paint from her imagination, incorporating subjects she finds of interest. This allows Lucia to “create a story in her mind of another place and moment in time, while trying to capture a glimpse of it upon my canvas.” Lucia’s work has been exhibited widely in galleries across Long Island.
Shain Bard's paintings evoke a sense of a moment captured in time that people can all subconsciously relate to. The way the light filters through the leaves of a small forest, the driver's view of dappled sun shining through the trees on a Sunday drive, or of a snowy sunset on a suburban street. "Nature and art are within and without us, something close to what I would call ‘home’. It is those moments when we most fully connect to our surroundings, those held-breath moments that I am interested in.” I also see the idiosyncratic forms of nature as instruments in an orchestra and light as the conductor. I am a conduit of that light as I create my compositions." Shain's work has been shown extensively in New York City and Long Island and is held in numerous private and corporate collections. “People often point to my paintings and say they know that place. Then I know that I have struck a chord in them; and yet, while they are somehow familiar with the territory, they are also really ‘seeing’ it for the first time.”
Margaret Minardi’s mixed media paintings juxtapose realism and expressionism. Combining years of classical training with a pure gestural mark making, she is inspired by the Expressionists of the 1950’s collage. “I am constantly in search of new mediums and processes that can be synthesized into my works. Important to me is serendipity. Mistakes keep me interested, intellectually challenged, and excited. Within Margaret’s works the viewer is constantly challenged to interpret and reinterpret what they see. There is a narrative beneath the surface of all her works. “Each brushstroke is a voice for my inner world. I strive to provoke an uplifting emotional connection in the observer of my work.”
Mike Stanko, a lifelong Long Islander, has been showing his unique and whimsical art for over 20 years. From his home in Valley Stream to the world beyond, he finds endless inspiration in the iconic, the familiar as well as the mundane - sunflowers, beach scenes, maybe even a grilled cheese sandwich. His paintings are bold and eye-catching and like the artist, convey joy, a sense of humor and a love of life. “I paint what I like” says Stanko, whose paintings have been exhibited both locally and nationally, and collected by people all over the country. Each painting is lovingly created with bright fields of color in his signature eye-catching style. Stanko’s paintings are buoyant and optimistic, reflective of his colorful outlook on the world around him, and sprinkled with wit, reminding the viewer that “Life is for Fun.”
Pamela Waldroup is a fine art photographer whose work is about “hyper-focusing on the subject to solidify my own experience and provoke a memory, real or imagined, to surface both for the viewer and me.” She will exhibit black & white photographs from her series City Perspectives - Inside and Out. The works in this project “voice my strong desire to capture interactions between human, environmental and industrial elements through a geometric approach found in the repetitive patterns and shapes.” As an art educator, Pamela taught photography (darkroom and digital) and fine arts for 33 years. “My camera gives me the ability to reveal to others the details I find in everyday subjects that often go unobserved.” Pamela’s work has been exhibited extensively in New York and Long Island.
