Gary Komarin Cakes & The French Wig

This has been a surprising and unique summer experience for me. I’ve long admired Gary’s work, first his large abstracts I saw in Atlanta and eventually fell in love with his charming Cake series painted on the backs of brown paper grocery bags. Size is determined by the number of connected bags, attached together from the back as a paper quilt. Their common traits are graduated layers, dripping icing, often with “CAKE” scrawled across the top. The taller the stack of bags, the more layers of the cake. He has lots of fun with color combinations and variations and they are all loose with a haphazard energy about them.

The cakes come from Komarin’s childhood. "My mother came to New York from Vienna to escape the war, and she baked many cakes for me throughout my childhood. She didn’t follow the recipe very well, so they were often runny or crooked but they were always delicious and full of love. My father was an architect from Eastern Europe, and the cakes are a fusion of those two worlds: the architectural and the domestic.” (source: Korean VOGUE)

“The French Wig series lives at the crossroads of abstraction and figuation, surface and psyche. Each work centers on a faceless figure crownd with a lavish wig, whimsical yet haunting, playful yet profound. The wig becomes not accessory but subject, a symbol of how identity is performed, concealed, and continually remade.” (The French Wig, Gary Komarin)

Living with all these lively characters - from French Wigs and Baby Cakes to dancing collaged figures, saturated colored paintings and fancy pants ceramics - has made quite the fun full house. So come on by, enjoy the experience and don’t forget, I do make a Mean Sangria.

Note: Still can’t believe Gary Komarin allowed me to show his work and didn’t hesitate to send me two boxes full. We’ve never met but have enjoyed a nice phone/email rapport over the summer. To learn more about Gary and his inspiring work visit www.garykomarin.com .

Wigs & Cakes Article for BAY ART FILES by Jessica Todd click HERE