Artist Statement

“Trees are one of Deb Komitor’s true loves.

 

Her affairs are numerous, long, lush. She sounds dreamy as she remembers the redwoods in California’s Jedediah State Park, where she made her husband stop the car in the middle of the road so she could get out and gaze up at the canopy of tree limbs and trunks stretching overhead. The poignant moment brought her to tears.

‘It felt like I’d found my ancestors, these big amazing trees that have been here so long.’ says the longtime Colorado Springs artist. ‘It felt like going home. We’re just a blip in their lives.’

 

And then there was the rainforest in Washington’s Olympic National Forest, and the cottonwood trees along Shooks Run Trail near her downtown home. There’s also the gnarly, twisting locust tree and the century-old maple tree in her own yard — it was a deciding factor in buying the home. But when it came time to trim the stately creature, she had to vamoose. ‘I couldn’t be here when they cut the limbs because I could feel it.’ she says. The same went for a  pair of old elm trees outside her former art studio, which were all cut down: ‘I cried and couldn’t stand being in the studio after that.’

 

What does an artist do with all those emotions but pour them back into her work? She paints what she’s loved since childhood — tall trees, fallen trees, the creeks and trails that wind through and around them, and sometimes the creatures of the forest. Komitor’s oil paintings are large, though she also does small colored pencil drawings. Her paintings are created over a black gesso background, which peeks through her short brush strokes. It makes the paintings more somber, she says, but also shows a reverence for nature.

 

Komitor paints in an unusual way (‘I call it my dyslexic way of painting.’ she says), starting from the foreground and moving into the background. The sky is last, which isn’t the typical way of doing things. It certainly wasn’t the way the Ohio-born artist was taught at Columbus College of Art and Design, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in painting, or Colorado State University, where she earned a master’s in painting.”

 

– from an article by Jennifer Mulson in the Gazette

 

My paintings create windows to a natural world. They don’t show the fast paced, chaotic world we live in; they show the nature we are surrounded by; the world that was here long before us and, hopefully, will be here long after us. My vision is to awaken in people the awe and wonder in nature and the healing powers of a walk in the woods.

 

I create large scale paintings to place the viewer inside the experience. You feel the energy of the subject through each brush stroke. The paintings don’t just draw you in; they come out and get you. They engage you to enter and experience the strength, peace, hope, joy, and calmness of nature. 

 

Now more than ever we need art. We need to express it, we need to share it, we need to experience it , whether live or viral. 

 

It is my intention to bring the viewer into the expansiveness of the nature that surrounds us, and then pull them into that place within their soul that connects us.

 

Deb Komitor was born and raised in Ohio. She spent her childhood enjoying the wealth of nature climbing trees and spending hours in creeks catching tadpoles and butterflies. Always drawing and creating Deb received a scholarship to attend Columbus College of Art and Design where she earned her BFA. She then went on to receive her MFA at Colorado State University where she fell in love with Colorado. Moving from the Midwest in 1997, she now resides in Colorado Springs with her husband Steve, her constant dog companions Zoey and Willow and two feline critters. Deb finds endless inspiration in all that surrounds her. Her landscape paintings express the joy, wonder and hope she feels in nature through a distinct style all her own. One feels the energy in each brushstroke as her paintings convey the forces and serenity in nature.

 

RESUME

 

SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2025       Auric Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO
2023       Surface Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

2022 / 2020 / 2018

                Kreuser Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

2016       Deco Lounge at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado Springs, CO 

2015       Abend Gallery, Denver, CO.
Modbo Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

2014       COPPeR, Cultural Offices Of The Pikes Peak Region, Colorado Springs, CO          

2013       Cottonwood On Tejon Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO
Tracy Miller Fine Art Gallery, Manitou Springs, CO
Progressive Studio Tour, Deb Komitor Studio, Colorado Springs, CO

1980-2011

The Great Southwest Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

Colorado Springs Airport, Colorado Springs, CO

Denver International Airport, Denver, CO

Common Wheel Artists Co-op, Manitou Springs, CO

Sangre De Cristo Arts & Conference Center, Pueblo, CO

Colorado Springs School, Colorado Springs, CO

Professors Art Gallery, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO

The Lincoln Center Galleries, Ft. Collins, CO

Columbus Cultural Arts Center, Columbus, OH

Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus, OH

Elzay Gallery, Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH

Battelle Fine Arts Center, Otterbein College, Westerville, OH

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Columbus Cultural Arts Center, Columbus, OH

  Hatton Gallery, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO

  Beaton Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

 

SELECTED RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024       “HerScapes”, Colorado Women’s Art Museum, Denver, CO

2024       “Gratitude Show” Auric Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

2011 / 2023

“Landscape Exhibit”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO

2023       “50% of the Story”, Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum, Colorado Springs CO

2022 / 2021

“Animalia Show”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO

2016       “Colors of the West, Landscapes We Love” ,Tracy Miller Gallery, Manitou Springs, CO
2014-2016

"Governors Invitational Art Show", Loveland Museum/Gallery, Loveland, CO

 2014      “Mountain Oyster Club Invitational Art Show”, Tucson, AZ

"All Gallery Show", Abend Gallery, Denver CO
“Critterati”, Tri Lakes Center For The Arts, Palmer Lake, CO
“Pikes Peak Studio Tour”, Colorado Springs, CO

2013       “Lone Tree Art Exhibit”, Lone Tree Center for the Arts, Lone Tree, CO

"Bold New West", Abend Gallery, Denver, CO
"Art Attack", Tri-Lakes Center For The Arts, Palmer Lake, CO

2012       “All Gallery Exhibit”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO

“In Depth-Canyons of the Southwest”, Commonwheel Gallery, Manitou Springs,  CO

2011       “Large Works Exhibit”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO     
“All Gallery Exhibit”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO

“Painted Journal - Around the World Survey, Abend Gallery, Denver CO

2008 / 2010

“Miniature Exhibit”, Abend Gallery, Denver, CO

“Art for Lands Sake”, Palmer Land Trust Invitational, Colorado Springs, CO

“Own Your Own”, Sangre de Cristo Art Center, Pueblo, CO

“Dia De Los Muertos”, Cottonwood Center for the Arts, Colorado Springs, CO

“Lone Tree Art Exhibit”, Lone Tree Golf Club and Hotel, Lone Tree CO

“Cuchara Hermosa Art Invitational”, Cuchara, CO 

2009       “Dia De Los Muertos Exhibit”, Cottonwood Center for the Arts, Colorado Springs, CO

2008       “Holiday Exhibit” Pikes Peak Center, Colorado Springs

                  “Women’s Art Show”, Old Pass Gallery, Raton, New Mexico

2006       “Icons”, Business of Art Center, Manitou Springs, CO

2004       “AKA”, Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

2003       “Neo Geo”, Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

“Colorado Artist Curated Showcase”, Republic Plaza, Denver, CO

2002       “Celebrate Colorado Artist”, Denver, CO.

“Carbon Based”, Business of Art Center, Manitou Springs, CO

2001       “Realities Shared”, Chaffee County Council on the Arts, Buena Vista, CO 

2000       “The Tzedakah Box Invitation” Mizel Museum of Judaica, Denver, CO

1999       “Mentor and Muse” Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, CO

“Into The Looking Glass” Business of Art Center, Manitou Springs, CO

“Colorado Art Open” Foothills Art Center, Golden, CO

1998       "A Little Left Of Reality" The Warehouse Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

"Technicolor", Warehouse Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO

1997       "1997 Colorado Art Open", Foothills Art Center, Golden, CO

"International Exhibition on Animals in Art", Louisiana State UN. Baton Rouge, LA

"Art & Ecology: Look In Your Own Backyard", Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

"Midwest Winter", Center for Visual Arts, Wausau, WI

1996       "The Best of 96'", Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH. The Dorothy Uber Bryan

                  Gallery, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH

"Chimerically Southern", Abstein Gallery, Atlanta, GA      

"All Ohio Exhibition", Pearl Conrad Art Gallery, Ohio State University, Mansfield, OH

"Art for Life", Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

 

SELECTED COLLECTIONS AND COMMISSIONS

Colorado Business Bank, Colorado Springs, CO 

Banner Ft. Collins Medical Center, Ft Collins, CO

Kaiser Permanente, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Denver, CO

Children’s Hospital at Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs, CO

Arapahoe Medical Center, Centennial, CO

Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs, CO

Academy Bank, Colorado Springs

Wheatridge Medical Center, Wheatridge, CO

Children’s Hospital, Denver, CO

Marriott Hotel, Denver, CO

The Waldren Group, Yorba Linda, CA

IMS Productions, Colorado Springs, CO

Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus, OH

Compuware Corporation, Columbus, OH

McGraw Hill Publishing, Blacklick, OH

Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, OH

Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO

SELECTED RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Western Art Collector, State Of The Arts Colorado, (reproduction), March 2015
Southwest Art Magazine, Ashley M. Biggers, Show Preview Denver, CO Deb Komitor Abend Gallery(Exhibit Review and reproductions)September 2015; Laura Rintala, The Governor’s Art Show (exhibit review and reproduction), May 2014 & May 2015; Artists Of Colorado (reproduction), May 2013 Akens, Kirsten

Independent: “Soar With Me” (exhibit Review reproductions), Nov. 20-26, 2008; Arnest, Mark

Gazette: "Komitor's Colorful World" (exhibition review), June 5, 1998 (reproductions); "State Fair Art Exhibit Unparalleled", (review) Aug. 29,1997; ''Small News'' (review) Dec. 15, 1996;Bradley,Jeff

The Denver Post: ”Escapist Art”(exhibition review), July 17,1999

The Designer’s Sourcebook: 1999; (reproduction). The Guild, Gilson, Nancy

The Columbus Dispatch; "Alumni, Faculty Exhibits to Showcase CCAD Talent" (exhibition review) Oct. 23, 1996 (reproduction). The Columbus Dispatch Hall, Jacqueline

The Columbus Dispatch: "Mountains Inspire Nocturnal Fantasies" (exhibition review) March 19, 1995 (reproduction) 

Independent, (reproduction), Dec. 4, 2003. Johnson, Katie

Gazette: “Making a Connection” (exhibition review), Aug. 4, 2000 (reproductions)

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 206 /No. 6 March 15, 1995 (cover reproduction); Jordan, Kenyon

Westside Pioneer, Vol. 3/ No. 40 Oct.12, 2006 “Artist Uses Words To Help With Father’s Death” reproduction).Vol.1/No. 44 Nov. 4, 2004 “Artists Invite Public...”,(reproduction); Leddy, Kim

Columbus Alive: "Rocky Mountain High" (artist profile) Vol. 12/No.11 March 15, 1995. “Up Front” (article) 

Ceramics Monthly, Volume 47, Number 3, March 1999. (Reproduction). Scott, Ryanne,

Gazette/Slice: “Open Season” (reproduction), Dec. 3, 2003

 

 

AWARDS AND HONORS

2010       Juror’s Award, Art for Lands Sake invitational, Colorado Springs, CO

2009       First Place, International Art Exhibit, Raton, NM

Honorable Mention, Lone Tree Art Exhibition, Lone Tree, CO

2008       Honorable Mention, Art for Land Sake Invitational, Colorado Springs, CO

1998       Crabby Award, Art Calendar Magazine, Upper Fairmount, MD

1997       KTSC TV Featured Artist, Art Auction 97, Pueblo, CO               

1995       Greater Columbus Arts Council Business/Arts Partners, Columbus OH

1983       Creative Arts Symposium, Lory Gallery, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO

1982       Graduate Fellowship, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO

1980       Outstanding Fine Artist Award, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH

 

EDUCATION 

1983       Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO - Masters of Fine Arts

1980       Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH - Bachelor of Fine Arts