Jack Radcliffe and Mack are the preeminent bear pornstars, considered icons in the bear community. The bear community is a segment of the gay community that exalts the physical characteristics of bears–lots of body hair and big tummies. The movement embraces an ideal of beauty quite outside of the mainstream. Komater is interested in challenging and subverting received ideas of beauty by examining this new ideal. Komater has introduced a different kind of artifice into his images of Jack & Mack, photographing them in poses taken from Renaissance painting, bringing together two very different codes of physical expression, each of which heightens the experience of the body in its own fashion.
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; Bernard Toale Gallery in Boston, and many other venues. 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 Chris’ sixth solo show at the Mercury 20 Gallery.
