The highly anticipated grand opening celebration of the new Rosalie "Roz" Steiner Art Gallery at Genesee Community College is set for 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, April 15.
The college Board of Trustees and gallery organizers are pleased to recognize the late Roz Steiner, President Stuart Steiner's wife, with the new facility that is named in her honor and located adjacent to the Genesee Center for the Arts at the Batavia campus.
Before Mrs. Steiner died unexpectedly in 2008, she was a visible figure at the college, participating in hundreds of events for board members, faculty, staff and students. She was active in community life and took a special interest in youth and education, serving in such roles as PTA president at John Kennedy School and hosting a number of Rotary exchange students.
She was a native of Maryland born in 1941. She and Stuart married in 1962, five years before relocating in Batavia, where they raised their four children.
The grand opening celebration features the work of two professional, regional artists, Eric Serritella and Carol Acquilano, in a dual exhibit. The two-hour celebration is free and open to the public, and includes music by the Tom Monte Trio and light refreshments.
Serritella is a nationally exhibiting ceramic artist specializing in hand-carved trompe l'oeil vessels transformed into birch and weathered logs. Serritella's one-of-a-kind tromp l'oeil ceramic sculptures have been awarded and exhibited in galleries and museums from coast to coast and in Asia. His work is included in permanent museum collections, including Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum and The Everson Museum of Art's world class ceramics collection in Syracuse. Many other esteemed collections contain his work, including the Kamm Teapot Foundation – the world's largest private teapot collection.
Serritella has contributed to nearly 50 exhibitions and his work has appeared on the covers of AmericanStyle and Pottery Making Illustrated, and in the pages of Ceramics Monthly, NICHE, Clay Times, The Crafts, Report, and Ceramic Art (Taiwan), as well as in several books and calendars on ceramic art. He has given workshops in the USA, Canada and Taiwan. For more information, visit <http://www.ericserritella.com>.
Painter, printmaker and book binder, Acquilano is an award-winning artist based in Rochester. She paints the landscape in and around her native city of Rochester. Her favorite place to paint, however, is Italy, where she feels the connection to her ancestral roots. Also a printmaker, she has exhibited her work in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Rochester and Cortona, Italy.
Acquilano studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass., and earned a bachelor's of arts degree from SUNY Empire State College. She has participated in multiple solo exhibitions throughout Rochester at the Little Theatre, Nazareth College, Philips Fine Arts, Cedar Arts Center, Arts for Greater Rochester and the Lightner Library at Keuka College. She has had several group exhibitions across the country and New York State, including the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.
Her selections for the Roz Steiner Art Gallery include paintings featuring cultivated landscapes of Cortona that have been painted over the last three years. Created both en plein air and in the studio, her paintings are a testament to her continued effort to develop her artistic voice. For more information on Acquilano, visit her Web site at <http://www.carolacquilano.com.>.
Community residents are kindly asked to RSVP for the gallery's grand opening celebration by calling 345-6809 or foundation@genesee.edu.
For gallery hours or for further information, please contact Gallery Manager Emily Pfeiffer at <http://ECPfeiffer@genesee.edu>.
Serritella's and Acquilano's dual exhibit continues through May 10. Currently, an exhibit of artwork by Genesee's Fine Arts students is on display in the new gallery.
