As cultural organizations on both sides of the border celebrate the centennial celebration for the Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada, Buffalo Arts Studio (2495 Main St., Suite 500) is hosting two local artists whose work reflects, in one way or another, on the force, mystery and beauty of water.

Kathleen Sherin’s work, which employs a variety of printmaking techniques, deals with the idea of borders and boundaries. Rosemarie Bauer Sroka’s paintings draw heavily on the physical attributes of water to dredge up bigger ideas about human experiences.

“Like life, water can be serene and peaceful, turbulent and confusing, deep and foreboding, or shallow and steady. It’s these dynamic complexities that challenge the viewer in each painting,” Sroka wrote in an artist’s statement.

In its main galleries this week, BAS will also open a pair of shows featuring work by Buffalo artists William Koch and Amy Robinson Gendrou. Koch’s abstract pieces use nontraditional materials (coffee, solvent, crayons) to produce compositions that reflect on the urban environment. Gendrou, too, has employed a rather strange material—pieces of Kleenex tissue type-written with journal entries—to construct a fortlike structure that viewers can walk through.

“The ease of throwing away the Kleenex, combined with the reserved and immortal bits of memory, guilt, worry, stress and possibility, gives the structure levity, mobility and strength,” Gendrou says in an invitation to the show.

The shows open with a reception at 7 tonight and runs through Aug. 8. For more information, call 833-4450 or visit

www.buffaloartsstudio.org

. —Colin Dabkowski