For the first 29 years of his life, Vincent Ciniglio was an artist waiting to happen. With no training or art appreciation classes, he’d simply marvel at the religious statues of his Catholic school, and he felt moved to tears by paintings on his first trip to Italy.

One day he walked into the New York Studio School on West Eighth Street, and then studied there for three years. At the encouragement of one of his teachers, the artist Philip Guston, Mr. Ciniglio then went on to Columbia University, where he earned a master of fine arts.

Since the 1980’s, Mr. Ciniglio has had a studio in the P.S. 122 performance space on First Avenue and Ninth Street, where he paints nearly every day. His work – which usually depicts tender, whimsical figures and are each painted in only three days – are modeled off of plastic baby dolls. On canvas, Mr. Ciniglio’s creations appear to look viewers straight in the eye with surprising intensity.

An exhibition of Mr. Ciniglio’s work will be held this weekend upstate. Before Mr. Ciniglio leaves for the show, he’ll bid each painting left in his studio a fond farewell, such is the connection he feels with his art.

NYU Journalism’s Meredith Hoffman reports.