2019
A forerunner of the post-painterly abstraction movement, contemporary artist Gary Komarin approaches each composition with a pure openness to inspiration. With every brushstroke, he builds a visual interpretation of his mindset in that moment, never knowing what he's going to paint next. Komarin asserts that, for him, "the best paintings are the paintings that paint themselves."
Komarin invites risk into his abstract work, and employs daring in every element of his pieces. From his adventurous deployment of spackle and house paint as mediums to his playful use of color and imperfect lines, he pulls forms from a backdrop of consciousness, rather than merely delivering images to a surface. He enjoys instilling a child's sense of wonder into his abstractions and still-lifes, invoking a toddler's experience of "seeing things without knowing what they are."
Born in New York City, Komarin is the son of a Czech architect and Austrian author. He attended art school at Boston University, where painter Phillip Guston became a mentor. Much of Komarin's work nods to Guston, without mimicking or replicating the latter’s signature cartoonish style.
Komarin has exhibited in the United States, Asia, the United Kingdom and throughout continental Europe. In 1996, his work was included in an exhibition at 41 Green Street in New York. He has received numerous awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts grant in painting, the Joan Mitchell Prize in Painting and the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship. Komarin lives in rural Connecticut, where he continues to create new work.
Find original Gary Komarin paintings, drawings and mixed media works on 1stDibs.
Cake Painting (Blue, Orange)
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake Painting (Blue, Orange), 2019 Signed on Recto Mixed media on paper. 129 x 60 cm 51 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, s...
Mixed Media
Cake Painting
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake Painting , 2019 Signed on recto Mixed media on paper 129 x 60 cm 51 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, spackle and hous...
Mixed Media
Cake Painting (Yellow, Blue)
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake Painting (Yellow, Blue), 2019 Mixed media on paper 129 x 60 cm 51 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, spackle and house ...
Paper, Mixed Media
Cake Painting
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake Painting , 2019 Signed on front of sheet Mixed media on paper 129 x 60 cm 51 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, spackle...
Mixed Media
Cake
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake, 2023 Acrylic on wood panel 50 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, spackle and house paint, Gary Komarin finds room in c...
Acrylic, Wood Panel
Cake
By Gary Komarin
Located in London, GB
Gary Komarin Cake , 2023 Acrylic on wood panel 127 x 61 cm 50 x 24 inches Eschewing traditional materials in favor of tarps and drop cloths, spackle and house paint, Gary Komarin fi...
Acrylic, Wood Panel
CAKES STACKED/SINGLE SACK (white on blue)
By Gary Komarin
Located in Fairfield, CT
Art in America Sarah S. King July 2003 Komarin’s most successful works are serial - such as the Pop-artish “cake” images - in which versions of a crudely outlined central image are...
Paper, Acrylic
Mixed Media Painting by Gary Komarin 'The French Wig (blue)'
By Gary Komarin
Located in White Plains, NY
'The French Wig (blue)' 2016 by American artist, Gary Komarin. Mixed media on canvas, 14 x 11 in. Wigs are among Komarin’s most recognizable idiosyncratic images. This faux naive wor...
Canvas, Mixed Media
A Wilder Blue
By Gary Komarin
Located in Fairfield, CT
Born in New York City, the son of a Czech architect and Viennese writer, Gary Komarin is a risk taker in contemporary painterly abstraction. Komarin’s stalwart images have an epic quality that grip the viewer with the idea that he or she is looking at a contemporary description of something timeless. 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 a recognizable image excludes too much. Komarin has been called a “painter’s painter”. His status in this regard is based on the authenticity of his work, its deep connection to the tradition of Modern painting as well as its sustained individuality as an utterly personal voice. Like many of the best artists of his generation he is indebted to the New York School, especially his mentor Philip Guston with whom he studied at Boston University where he was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship. Komarin has been particularly successful at filtering these influences through his own potent iconography. “From these seemingly unlovely methods Komarin gets paintings that vibrate with historical memory, echoing such things as Matisse’s driest most empty pictures. Robert Motherwell’s spare abstractions of the 1970’s, or the early New Mexico and Berkeley paintings...
Enamel
Blue
By Toby Zallman
Located in Boston, MA
Artist Commentary: Made with plastic bags, beeswax, oil paint and graphite Keywords: abstract, calm Artist Biography: Toby Zallman has always combined ...
Plastic, Wax, Oil, Graphite
Pantomime. IX Abstract blue/blue painting, Painting, Acrylic on Paper
By Sia Aryai
Located in Yardley, PA
Pantomime Framed abstract painting This lively original abstract painting on hand-cut parchment brings a pop of life to any room. The painting is 8X10â€
Acrylic
Harmonic .IV Vibrant blue one of a kind painting, Painting, Acrylic on Paper
By Sia Aryai
Located in Yardley, PA
Stunning shades of green are contrasted and complemented by blue with a twist in this one of a kind abstract minimal painting Painting is 14X18 acrylic on hand-made Asian parchmen...
Acrylic
