Gianna Commito was born in Sea Level, North Carolina, earned a bachelor’s in fine arts from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1998 and a master’s in fine arts from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa in 2003. Commito creates elaborate, geometric paintings with intersecting shards, bands and stripes of color. The effect, as described by The New York Times, “is of looking into a broken kaleidoscope, its elements askew in a shallow space.” Commito often paints with casein and marble dust ground on panel.
Commito’s work has appeared in exhibitions at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia, The Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio, Lehman College Art Department in New York City, MOCA Cleveland and National Academy in New York City, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards and Fellowships, including the Ohio Arts Council Award, the Cleveland Art Prize, artist-in-residence at Yaddo and, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2018, her work was featured in the inaugural edition of the Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art in Cleveland. Commito currently lives and works in Kent, Ohio.
