First Thursday – Exhibition: John Comer “This Sacred Land”

John Comer – This Sacred Land
On View through September 1, 2021

John Comer has been painting since he was a boy. His dedication to painting and surfing has been the driving passion of his life. A true waterman, he also spent many years sailing & fishing commercially.

Comer’s professional career began in 1968 with his first solo gallery exhibition and has been intermingled with sailing and painting voyages to the Caribbean, Central America, Islands of the Pacific and Africa. As a sailor he came to appreciate the importance of the atmosphere in a painting. “The weather is the important thing… it affects what you see and don’t see – colors, values and shapes.”

For many years Comer shared a Santa Barbara studio with Ray Strong, the legendary landscape painter who was a contemporary of Maynard Dixon and co-founded the Oak Group in Santa Barbara. Comer credits Strong with helping him master the interrelation of color and value in his paintings, as well as the importance of drawing. Time spent painting in the field with Ray, Michael Drury and Hank Pitcher provided inspiration and a lifelong bond. In recent years Comer has painted primarily in Baja California Sur producing work that deeply reflects his enduring relationship to the land and sea.