Gary Komarin American, b. 1951
For painter Gary Komarin, abstraction has never been a formal dead-end. Rather, it has allowed him to challenge the limitations of the style, to make painting "include more" precisely because, to quote Komarin's early mentor, Philip Guston, a recognizable image "excludes too much." While Komarin is not the type to write a manifesto, he embraces the philosophy that intention is but a small fragment of our consciousness, that painting should be more about experience than a statement of intent. For nearly three decades, Komarin has steadily produced a seemingly endless reconfigured vision - saturated and loose color fields punctuated by drips, splotches, and ghostly drawn geometries - indifferent to the ebb and flow of taste. And throughout he has remained quite content to allow each viewer "to bring something different" to his work.
- Mason Klein
A master of Post-Painterly Abstraction, Gary Komarin has been at the forefront of contemporary art for over a half century. With a bold and colorful style recognized by collectors and curators worldwide, the viewer is invited to enter the intimate space where a dialogue is established between painter and painting. Post-painterly abstraction is a style that favors openness, risk taking, and clarity, as opposed to the dense painterly surfaces that are apparent in abstract expressionism. However, the definition of post painterly abstraction is limited in conveying the very wide range of activities that its artists pursue.
Komarin has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. He recently returned from a solo museum exhibition at the Musee Kiyoharu in Japan. The exhibition and catalog, Moon Flows like a Willow, was orchestrated by the Yoshi Foundation in Tokyo and Paris. Komarin was also invited to show his work at the privately owned Musee Mougins in the South of France where he exhibited Vessel pieces from Twenty Four Vessels at Kit Mandor.
Articles and essays about Komarin’s work have been published in the New York Times, Art in America, and Arts Magazine among others. His work may be found in many noted public collections including: Galleria Nazionale d’ Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy; Denver Art Museum, Denver; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Yoshii Foundation, Tokyo; Musée Kiyoharu Shirakaba, Hokuto; Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins, Mougins; Boise Art Museum, Idaho; The Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Boston University Museum of Fine Arts; The Microsoft Corporation, galleries Proarta, Zurich; Blount International, Atlanta; The United Bank of Houston, The Hyatt Corporation and American Airlines.
