Born in New York City, the son of a Czech architect and Viennese writer, Gary Komarin is a risk taker and considered a modern master in post painterly abstraction.
Komarin’s stalwart images have an epic quality that grips 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 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. Mr. 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.
In 1996, Komarin’s work was included in a pivotal exhibition at 41 Greene Street where his work was shown with the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Guston and Bill Traylor. Gary Komarin was invited to show in a catalog exhibition with Robert Motherwell and Sir Anthony Caro in Dublin in 2009. One of the paintings in this exhibition was recently acquired by Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma. And in 2016, Komarin was invited to show with Joan Mitchell and Manuel Neri in Denver. In 2016, a 60 Minutes Producer, Harry Moses, shot, produced and directed a short documentary film on Gary Komarin titled, The Painter’s Path. This follows Komarin’s invitation to participate in a film titled, The Chalkboard Chronicles, narrated by Spalding Grey. He was also included in a recent documentary on American master Clyfford Still, which was aired at the New Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, where Komarin’s work was also acquired for their permanent collection.
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 is 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 Crocker Museum, Sacramento; MAMBO, Bogota; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; The Yoshii Foundation, Tokyo; Musée Kiyoharu Shirakaba, Japan; Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins, Mougins; Museum of Contemporary Art Corpus Christi, Texas; Boise Art Museum, Idaho; The Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Boston University Museum of Fine Arts; The Zimmereli Museum; The Noyes Museum; The Morris Museum; The Newark Museum; The Microsoft Corporation, Gallery Proarta, Zurich; Blount International, Atlanta; The United Bank of Houston; The Hyatt Corporation; and American Airlines. Private collections include: Sheila Simonian, New York; James Maher, New York; John McEnroe, New York; Candace Bushnell, New York; The N. Horiuchi Collection, Tokyo; Maxwell Davidson, New York; The Gisep Biert Collection, Zurich; The Abrussezze Collection, New York; The Broadbent Collection, London; The Ron Gremillion Collection, Houston; Mason Klein, The Jewish Museum, New York; Kathryn McCarver Root, New York; Tim Jefferies, London; Robert Lamb, Chicago; Laurie and Scott Oki, Palm Desert; Toby Clarke, London; Meredith Long, Houston; Philip Gorrivan, London; Vicente Wolfe, New York; Karen Kelley, New York; Julie Ott, Portland; Adrienne Kruger Conzelman, East Hampton; Preston O’Brian, Virginia; Martin Amis, London; Stefano Nicolaus, Zurich; David Alan Greer, Los Angeles; Jeffrey Hoffeld, New York; Luke Honey, London; Marian Boesky, New York; Tim Culbert, New York; Wendy Olsoff, New York; The Gonzalo Alvar Collection, Madrid; The Harry Moses Collection, New York; Ruth O’Hara, New York; Visko Hatfield, Connecticut; Florence de Dampierre, New York.
Gary Komarin lives and works in a house and studio in the wooded hills of Roxbury, Connecticut.
