Gary Komarin | A Master Series of Works: Now Live

According to Gary Komarin, he works to get rid of intention because too many ideas work against the free flow of a painting. So instead of planning out each painting’s forms, figures and colour palette, the artist chooses instead to make markings on the canvas with charcoal or crayon to get rid of the fear of the blank canvas and to open up the painting. His non-traditional and fast-drying choice of materials – non-industrial canvas tarps, drop cloths, latex house paint, spackle and wide brushes attached to long wooden handles – allow for the paint to flow through the canvas and for unplanned visual elements to happen.

"Generally, I work on several pieces at once. This takes any pressure off of resolving one painting and allows for certain visual events to move back and forth between paintings. The paintings speak to me but they also speak to each other."

Sometime in the early 90’s, Gary Komarin decided to attach several paper bags from the back and paint stacked cake like objects on the front of them. According to the artist, he didn't think much about these works at first. However, a few weeks later a very well-positioned private art dealer from New York payed a visit to his studio, and although he wasn't planning on showing these works, they were spread out on the floor. The art dealer stopped for a moment and asked Komarin to pin one or two of them to the wall. He was so enamoured by these paintings that he offered to show them at the prestigious “The Armory Show” in Manhattan. All of the Cakes were sold on the first day of the show, and the series have been a major success and one of Komarin’s most sought after works ever since.

"I began doing cake paintings and drawings way before I realized I was doing them. I was drawing stacked cylindrical objects scribbled on sides of notebooks back in grade school in the late 50’s."

"I rather like the simple honesty of a paper bag. There is a great poetry to a paper bag and beauty in how it can be unfolded back to its original format after carrying various objects. They have a nice pulpiness and physicality for applying paint."

Gary Komarin’s “Vessel” series emerged organically, as is the case with nearly all his works. He began his career as a still life painter, placing bottles, bowls, cups and vessels into different arrangements before painting them. Their forms have been in his repertoire since the start of his career; however, creating a single vessel in vertical format materialised in the late 80’s. As a student of history, archaeology and anthropology with a fascination for tribal groups and their traditions, Komarin is not only interested in vessels for their alluring shapes, but also for their existence as a necessary tool since the Neolithic Period. 

"The vessel form is very malleable and flexible and allows for many iterations. This enabled me to play again and again with vessel formats. Some are solid, some loosely drawn and there are ever so many variations yet to be explored in terms of form, color and texture."