This week we welcome Lauren Comito, a Brooklyn-based visual artist and educator. She holds an MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in art history and painting from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University. In September, Comito exhibited in “Gritty Rituals,” a three-person exhibition featuring John O’ Connor and Peter Schenck at Equity Gallery in New York City. During the summer, her work was featured in an exhibition titled “Vagabond Shoes,” curated by Ben Klein at McBride Contemporain gallery in Montreal.
She has also shown works at Public Space One (Iowa City), Shrine (New York), Park Place Gallery (New York), the Hewitt Gallery of Art at Marymount Manhattan College (New York), Index Art Center (Newark), Chashama: Space to Present (New York) and Slag Gallery (New York), among others.
She published a limited edition of prints with Eminence Grise Editions, showcased at the Editions/Artists’ Book Fair and Art on Paper in New York, and the SOON Paris Art Fair in France. Comito currently teaches at The New School and Pratt Institute, where she has also been a visiting artist. She has additionally served as a visiting artist at Rutgers University, Pace University, UMass Amherst, and Sarah Lawrence College.
Comito’s art transforms the overlooked into the profound. Drawing inspiration from everyday objects such as discarded packaging, she begins with abstract forms that evolve into complex, meaningful structures. In Comito’s work, these ordinary items serve as potent symbols of impermanence and serve as a connection to our consumer society.
Through symmetry and repetition, she constructs figures that emerge from abstraction, inviting viewers to engage in pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon that causes people to see recognizable shapes or patterns in random or unrelated objects or data—perceiving faces, watchful eyes, portals, and more within her compositions. Her colorful, totemic, Rorschach-like figures explode onto the canvas, confronting viewers while offering a playful counterpoint to their serious undertones. Comito creates celestial beings and intricate structures that are deliberately convoluted and challenging to decipher, prompting us to question the psychic impact of our contemporary landscape on our consciousness.
See more of Comito’s work on her website and Instagram.
Read more of our Artist of the Week features here.
