Chris Komater has borrowed the title of his new series of photographs, Allegory of Inclination, from a 17th century work by the great Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi. Artemisia was commissioned by the Casa Buonarotti in Florence to create a work that celebrated Michelangelo’s inborn artistic ability—his “inclination” towards artistic expression. Komater’s version is a gathering of the subject matter that has been the basis of his various projects over the years, the flowers of his aesthetic desire, in a way: the older male body and its aesthetic and sensual representation. His desires and narratives are given visual form through photography, a medium that is as true and objective as it is malleable and obfuscating.

Chris Komater is a San Francisco-based artist. His photographs and sound installations have been shown at Cheryl Haines Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Mark Wolfe Contemporary Arts, Meridian Gallery, and the LAB Gallery in San Francisco; Jan Kesner Gallery in Los Angeles; and Bernard Toale Gallery in Boston. He is the recipient of a WESTAF-NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship, a Market Street Art-in-Transit grant, and was the founding director and curator of Secession Gallery, a non-profit gallery without walls in San Francisco, and the online arts venue, Marjorie Wood Gallery. This is Komater’s eighth solo show at Mercury 20 Gallery.