Gary Komarin

Gary Komarin (born September 14, 1951) is an American artist known for his abstract work. His art is characterized by spontaneous mark-making, figuration, and painterly expression. Komarin's work is associated with post-painterly abstraction.

Early life and education

Gary Komarin was born in New York City in 1951, the son of a Czech architect and an Austrian writer. He studied at Albany State University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Art and English Literature. After completing his undergraduate studies, Komarin attended Boston University, where he received a master's degree with a focus on fine arts. While at Boston University, he studied under artist Philip Guston and held a year-long graduate teaching fellowship, which concluded in 1977.

Career and work

Komarin's work is associated with post-painterly abstraction and abstract expressionism. He often uses unconventional materials such as drop cloths, industrial canvas tarps, and brown paper bags instead of traditional artist canvases. His painting technique includes mixing water-based house paint with spackle and water to create hybrid matte colors, alongside other mixed media materials. In a 2004 interview with The New York Times, Komarin was quoted as saying, "If I were stuck in the studio with just brown and white paint and a box of dried oatmeal, I'd figure out something I could do with them."

Selected exhibitions As of 2024, Komarin has exhibited internationally, with shows in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Notable exhibitions include a 2008 solo museum exhibition of large-scale canvases, Moon Flows like a Willow, at the Musée Kiyoharu Shirakaba in Japan, organized by the Yoshii Foundation in Tokyo, along with galleries in New York, Tokyo, and Paris. He participated in a four-person exhibition at McEnroe Gallery, 41 Greene Street, in New York alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Guston, and Bill Traylor, in 1996. He has also been featured alongside Robert Motherwell and Larry Poons in a 2012 exhibition essay States of Feeling written by John Daly.

In 2008, Komarin exhibited a large cake painting at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York. This catalog exhibition was titled: ‘Here's the Thing: The Single Object Still Life,” curated by Robert Cottingham. Komarin's work was shown alongside works by Andy Warhol, Christo, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston, and others. Komarin's work has also been included in curated group shows in New York, Dubai, and Zurich alongside works by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Yves Klein, and Joan Miró. Komarin has also exhibited in catalog exhibitions in New York, Bogota, Zurich, Dubai, Paris, Palm Beach, Houston, San Francisco, Denver, Assisi, and London in the past decade.

In 2020, Komarin had a solo exhibition at the Dado Museum in Seoul, Korea. This followed a solo exhibition at the Azjuelo Museum and inclusion in an exhibition titled "Kinesis" at the Neon Gallery in London.

Selected collections Komarin's work is held in various public and private collections globally. These include museums such as the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum South Texas, Corpus Christi; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Denver Art Museum; The Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento; Museum of Modern Art, Bogota; the Montclair Art Museum; the Newark Museum; the Boise Art Museum; the Zimmerli Museum; the Arkansas Museum of Contemporary Art; Boston University Museum of Fine Arts; the Yoshii Foundation, Tokyo; the Musee Kiyoharu Shirakaba, Japan; and the Musee Mougins, France.

Corporate collections holding his work include Microsoft Corporation, Blount International, the United Bank of Houston, United Airlines, the Hyatt Corporation, AT&T, and American Airlines.

Awards and recognition

Komarin has received several awards, fellowships, and grants during his career. While studying at Boston University from 1975 to 1977 he completed a one year long graduate teaching fellowship under Philip Guston. The Edward T. Albee Foundation chose him as an Albee Fellow in 2000 as a part of The Barn program.

Publications and media coverage

Komarin has been interviewed and featured in many different publications including The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Arts Magazine, and L’Officiel Austria

Influences

Komarin has cited the New York School, and especially his teacher Philip Guston at Boston University, as major influences on his artistic development. According to a New York Times article by Barry Schwabsky, “Guston's lesson in cultivating the unknown has clearly stuck with Mr. Komarin. And on a more superficial level, the teacher's peculiar sense of form can also still be traced in his former student's work – in the way Mr. Komarins' bulbous forms can seem to echo, in an abstract way, the cigars, cyclopean heads, and naked light bulbs in Guston's paintings.”

Exhibitions