Two commercial artist show the full range of their work

Two shows of works by Buffalo natives demonstrate that traditional methods of drawing and painting are living forms, and more than just staples in galleries. One by Ralph Sirianni is at the Arts Council downtown. Another by Robert J. Witzel is at the Grant Street Gallery on the West Side. Both men have made careers as commercial artists: Sirianni as a courtroom and police sketch artist, and Witzel as a designer and illustrator for advertising and other corporate materials.

Sirianni's "Beauty is Heartbreaking"

Ralph Sirianni: Recent Works

Ralph Sirianni exhibits his most recent works, a series of abstract paintings, at the Arts Council. These are a departure from Sirianni’s more famous works. He is most well known for his police sketch of bike path rapist Altemio Sanchez, which was featured on the Fox show America’s Most Wanted. Also familiar to the public are his courtroom sketches of Ralph “Bucky” Phillips and the Lackawanna Six, which were prominently featured on the news.

Sirianni’s newest paintings are representations of various emotional states. Self Portrait at Terminal Velocity is a large rendering in blues, whites, and silvers of what it felt like for him to go skydiving, accelerating to 180 miles per hour or more.

Consternatal is an earth mother depicted in ovoid forms with ruddy hues. She is a fleshy, fertile, Venus of Willendorf figure. Beauty Is Heartbreaking is a nighttime sky scene comprising profiles of a couple: He is formed of cloud patterns and she is the lady in the moon, forever unattainable.

Sirianni is a Vietnam veteran, and many of his compositions return to a military theme. These are done in darker color schemes: green, navy, black, brown, and maroon. Incoming is a figure crouched in the fetal position, as though ducking a blow or hiding from shrapnel. Absolute Reality is a weary, ghostly soldier fearfully awaiting his fate. Macbeth is a large, red painting containing violent strokes that recall the bloodletting and massacres in Shakespeare’s play.

There are lighthearted works, too. The subject of Yardbird is a robin Sirianni hand-fed in the backyard of his North Buffalo home and thus trained to approach him. The painting is done in yellows, greens, violets, and oranges. Jimi for a Friend is a portrait of Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar.

Painting by Robert J. Witzel, who made a career as a commercial artist and whose work is the subject of a retrospective at the Arts Council of Western New York.

RJ Witzel: What a Native Buffalonian Did With 85 of 90 Years in Art

The inaugural opening show at the Grant Street Gallery is a retrospective of work by Robert J. Witzel.

Witzel has had a long career working as an illustrator and graphic designer spanning several decades. Through the Art Institute of Buffalo, a WPA project created in the 1930s which no longer exists, he began studying art. He then enrolled at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute for more training. Some of his early paintings included in the show depict scenes from the South Pacific during World War II, when he served as an artist traveling through the region with the military.

The show also features pieces from his days working for advertising firms. In the 1950s he illustrated a brochure for the Keds sneaker company and did other commissions for large companies such as IBM. There are also examples of the design work he did locally for Fisher Price and National Gypsum.

His later paintings are watercolors rendered during retirement in Florida of golfers, landscapes, nudes, lovers, dancers, life lounging poolside a la Hockney, jazz musicians, and concert violinists. Witzel spends summers in Buffalo, where he paints landscapes.

Sirianni’s show runs until Friday, June 13, at the Arts Council of Buffalo & Erie County, 700 Main Street (856-7520/sirianniart.com).

Witzel’s exhibit runs until June 29 at the Grant Street Gallery, 216 Grant Street near Lafayette (772-221-8437/rjwitzel.com).