Gary Komarin (b. 1951, New York City), is a risk taker in contemporary painting.
For nearly five decades, Komarin’s stalwart dedication to the potential of concrete art continues to produce work that is alive, containing spontaneity, playfulfiguration, and painterly expression. For Komarin, abstraction has never been a formal dead end— rather, it has allowed him to challenge the limitations of the style to makep ainting ‘include more’ precisely because a recognizable image excludes too much. His approach emerges from a belief that painting should embody more than representation.

Komarin incorporates his formal education and upbringing into his artworks: His mentorship from a year-long fellowship with Philip Guston, study at the Arts Leagueof New York and the New York Studio School and graduate work in English Literature find influence in his mark making, work titles, and prose. His childhood spent in New York City to European émigré parents – a Czech architect and a Viennese writer - takes root in the paintings and symbolic motifs.
Internationally recognized – Komarin’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world, in United States, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. His work is found in the permanent collection of major museums worldwide including The Museum of Modern Art, Rome, Italy; The Museum of Modern Art, Bogota; Musée Kiyoharo, Kyoto, Japan and the Musée Mougin in the South of France.

Komarin’s art has been notably exhibited with seminal figures in contemporary art history, including a pivotal four-person curatorial at McEnroe Gallery in New York: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Guston Bill Traylor, Gary Komarin. Komarin's work was recently shown in curatorial dialogue with Cy Twombly, Robert Motherwell, and Larry Poons in Dublin; Andy Warhol in Zurich; and David Hockney at Blond Contemporary in London's St James district.
Additionally, the Musée Kiyoharu in Yamanashi, Japan, honored Komarin with a solo exhibition of his large-scale paintings, entitled Moon Flows Like a Willow.
Upcoming solo exhibitions for 2026 include solo shows in New York, at Rafael Gallery; Johannesburg, South Africa at Graham Gallery; Paris, at Tourrette Gallery; Beirut, at KAF Gallery; and Seoul, Korea at Azulejo Gallery.
Komarin is the recipient of numerous accolades including the Joan Mitchel Prize in Painting, the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship in Painting, and the Philip Guston Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Boston University.
Publication on Komarin’s work include the New York Times, Art in America, L’Officiel Paris, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Arts Magazine. Gary Komarin lives and works at his country studio in Roxbury, Connecticut and in New York City.

Work and Artistic Process:
Komarin’s body of work challenges considerations of scale and materiality across all Series.

From a postcard-size figural abstraction to monumental works on paper in the Cake series stitched together from various pieces - he paints both to behold in his hand and to become enmeshed fully in the work, and every scale in between. Painterly gesture is present all of the time, humor often, and primitives present in all of his works, sometimes raw and sometimes playful.

Komarin oft uses nontraditional materials in his artworks—house paints, stitched papers, joined panels, spackling compound,—not out of irony but to break hierarchy and invite accidental opportunity. He paints quickly and intuitively, letting forms emerge and disappear across layers. Nothing is drawn first. There are no studies. Each painting begins without a plan and moves by feel. Paintings are often revisited and reworked over the span of months and sometimes years.

Komarin’s contemporary body of work comprises multiple, co-existent areas of exploration, and a unique visual language which floats between these genres. Each shares certain motifs and painterly qualities, but is a unique stream of Komarin’s muse. The Figure/Field series comprise palimpsest color fields on large, stretched canvas. Figural objects of amorphous, often playful quality, float above andbetween layers of color. The Cake series recalls Komarin’s memory of a childhood raised by European Émigré parents in New York City. The Cake images are an amalgam of domestic and architectural qualities. Often painted on joined surfaces, including
paper bags and wood panels, the Cakes explore the dynamic between armature and form-making. The French Wig series is a meditation in Victorian armature, color, and wit, often at a smaller scale on canvas or paper. The Vessel series is both primitive and contemporary: the form acts as spatial device for the iterative exploration of color, pattern, and shape, worked on uniform paper, introducing repetition and difference. Duke & Wigmore, painted on the floor, allow for fluidity and gestural openness within a parameterized format and medium. Slipping Mary returns to Komarin’s fascination with free association—images newly formed layered,
ambiguous multiple meanings emerge – they are fragments, memories, and images that hold their own - sometimes serious, and sometimes wry. Slipping Mary utilizes found materials – wax paper sandwich bags, fashion magazine clippings, envelopes and other items lying around his study, or in his studio.