Interview by Jimon

1-Gary Komarin, one word to describe him? Energized !!!

2-Where do you reside and work currently? Country Connecticut amidst Rolling hills, ponds, tall pine trees  and babbling brooks.

3-Did you have any training for art or is it inherent?  I have a graduate teaching fellowship and master degree in fine arts from Boston University but I believe talent is largely intuitive and self generated.

4-Do you remember the first piece of art that you created? I have been painting since I was five years of age or earlier. One of my first recollections is my painting of the family dog.

5-When did you first start making art and what lead you to start?  It has been a continuous process. I simply have never stopped. I was very attracted to the touch and feel of art material: paint, paper, paint brushes, clay, plaster I loved all of it.

6-Best advice you ever received in regards to your art? Follow your intuitions. Let the painting speak back to you. And listen…. Ultimately paint what you don’t know.

7-What influences you as an artist?  Nearly everything. I don’t make notes or sketches.  I am rather like a sponge taking thins in consciously and unconsciously.  Textures, colors, light, dark, reflections, aromas. It is all related. Everything moves in wave and one must ride the wave.

8-Do you first draw a mock-up? No.

9-How do you describe success as an artist? Success is a relative term. There is creative success and financial success. For me, is good to have both. Creative success also means that you have pushed the envelope as it were and have explored color and shape, and form and drops and happy accidents in the work. That you have really gotten into the paintings and come out the other side as it were. You have to get lost in the painting for a time. You cannot simply stand outside like a quiet observer.

10-Are the colors in your art indicative of your state of mind?  Not really, I don’t think of black as dark mood and white as good mood. I paint intuitively and colors mean different things, or many things to different people.

11-How would you like to be seen as an artist years from now? As someone who tool risks in his work. People often think risk are about jumping off the bridges or white water rafting but creative risks are quiet real and more difficult to define.  One must be on the edge of “something” when making a painting or the piece goes flabby and soft. You have to have the sense that you can “lose” the painting in a moment and this keeps you on your toes. Painting puts you in the moment when you are really doing it with the heart.

12-Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration? Not one thing but I enjoy open country spaces, walks on gorgeous beaches, palm trees of which I own many / even in Connecticut and I like to visit certain paintings at top museums even if I have been looking at them for over fifty tears, I take a fresh look and see something I have never seen before. This intrigues me.

13-If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table? Picasso, Matisse and Michelangelo.

14-Name three things you can’t live without in your studio? Music, very good light and lean and clean spaces.

15-How would someone find you on social media? Gary Komarin on Instagram, website and Wikipedia.