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Gary Komarin -
"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 1970s, or the
early New Mexico and
Berkeley paintings
of Richard
Diebenkorn," writes
Kenneth Baker of the
San Francisco
Chronicle.
Innocence and
sophistication
subliminally align
in Gary Komarin's
work. His
abstract paintings
are a witty
synthesis of
spontaneous gesture,
geometric
composition, and
iconic form, with a
certain tendency to
monochrome.
His art is important
in that it amplified
the evolution of
imaginative
abstraction by
harnessing the
paradoxical
randomness of
nature.
Komarin takes what
was once
'forbidding' and
'hermetic' - terms
for abstraction in
its inaugural heroic
period - and makes
it ironically lyric
by making it
playful. He
returns gesturalism
to its origins in
landscape, but the
abstract landscape
is no longer
'apocalyptic' as
Kandinsky's have
been said to be, but
whimsical. He
takes what had
become closed
systems of
geometrical and
non-geometrical
abstractions and
interbreeds them.
The result is a
hybrid abstraction,
less heavy-handed
than traditional
abstraction but
still emotionally
serious.
For all its brooding
atmospherics and
sensual touches, the
surface remains
peculiarly
inviolable.
Komarin's shapes
linger on his
surface, inviting us
to enjoy their
paradox: child-like
drawings and
painterly markings
in a clever
arrangement. A
good part of the
irony is that
Komarin's paintings
hover
indeterminately on
the boundary between
purity and imagery.
As soon as they seem
one-sidedly
abstract, they
become 'impressions'
of a natural
environment.
This doubleness
keeps them fresh
even as it confirms
their traditional
modernism.
It is the paintings'
fleeting appearance
- their sense of
being in timely
process - that makes
them emotionally
engaging; the
abstract composition
gives them a
peculiar permanence
and timelessness. --
Donald Kuspit,
prominent art critic
and art historian,
New York 2008
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Steven Seinberg
- The soft, sensuous abstraction of Steve Seinberg celebrates the process of insemination, and honors the concept of fertility. Like the seeping of water into layers of planted soil, the thin washes of color in Seinberg's
canvases penetrate
imagery of seeds and
pods, acknowledging
the primal impulse
of all natural life
to regenerate.
Seinberg's art
communicates in a
mysterious,
unobtrusive manner,
speaking subtly and
instinctively.
Because the various
elements within his
pictures are
determined by what
he intuits at each
moment of the
process of creation,
every aspect and
phase of his work
fades in and out of
the paint almost
imperceptibly.
In the art world
this type of light
painting is commonly
referred to as
'high-key painting'
because it primarily
uses the upper
values of the
dark-to-light scale.
A great deal of what
we are allowed to
see and not see in
Seinberg's art is
determined by the
hiding power of
these white pigments
he uses. Some
have the opacity of
an avalanche utterly
covering all trace
of the ground.
Others have the
masking strength of
a semitransparent
layer of ice where
only faint ghostlike
impression of the
original expression
can still be seen
beneath.
"To be touched by
this work is not
unlike experiencing
a subtle glance, or
a faint whisper held
under the breath, or
the wind's light
kiss on your cheek,"
states art critic
Robert Sherer.
"These paintings are
made by a very
sensitive/perceptive
person for a very
sensitive/perceptive
audience. This
is the visual art of
people who know that
what is not said is
often more important
than the spoken
word."
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