Huntington Senior Cadence Dondero Wins Best in Show

Huntington senior Cadence Dondero won Best-in-Show at the Huntington Arts Council’s Nightmare on Main Street exhibition. Titled “Amongst Many,” her winning entry is an acrylic and pen print measuring 16x20 inches.

“The Púca, or Phouka, a creature from Irish and Celtic folklore, is a legendary shapeshifting spirit believed to take on the form of any beautiful and alluring creature,” states Ms. Dondero’s artist’s statement. “I was always intrigued by the idea of this spirit still taking forms today, in lesser expected ways. Through costumes and the people hiding behind them.”

The Huntington Arts Council promotes arts and culture generated by Long Island artists to our children and to the general population. It works to enrich the cultural, social and economic life of the community by nurturing the professional development of artists, and by providing timely news and events via Arts Cultural Magazine (reaching 20,000 per issue).

“Resembling the Púca, we use costumes to transform into something other than ourselves,” Ms. Dondero said. “To disguise, play, act, and inhabit another identity. For a moment in time, the everyday self gives way to something more magical, imaginative, and strange.”

The Huntington Arts Council’s Arts-in-Education program reaches 35,000 children annually through its partner school districts. “We also offer artistic programs and services to our more than 100 cultural organization members who encompass the broad spectrum of arts disciplines,” according to the organization.

Ms. Dondero has been working with Huntington High School art teacher Kristin Singer. The teenager’s talents have grown and become more refined.

“With empty eye sockets, masks covering any recognizable features, and identities hidden under layers of fabric made disguises, the work puts to question what it means to recognize someone as truly human,” according to Ms. Dondero’s artist statement. “The Púca became a symbol of this uncertainty for me. A creature that can appear as something familiar while concealing something entirely different underneath. By hiding the figures human features, my art asks the question: if appearances can be changed so easily, how do you know who, or what, is under the mask?”