FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 25, 2025

PAUL KOSTABI
RESONANCE

GARNERVILLE – GARNER Arts Center is proud to present RESONANCE, a solo exhibition of large-scale paintings and archival works from the East Village and Piermont-based artist and musician Paul Kostabi, to be exhibited in the Main Gallery at Building 35.

“Living between the frenetic pulse of New York City’s East Village and the slower, echoing rhythms of the Hudson Valley, I find my work shaped by the friction and harmony of these dual existences. RESONANCE is not only a sonic metaphor drawn from my life in music and visual art, but a declaration of presence. It reflects how the human mark reverberates across geography and memory.”

–Paul Kostabi

Paul Kostabi (b.1962) is an expressive “figuratist” painter. A native of Whittier, California, his wildly colorful paintings pay homage to the characters he encounters in his other career as a record producer. His distinctive personal style emanates a sense of closeness and familiarity while expressing the shrill and aggressive spirit and atmosphere of the east side of Manhattan below 14th Street. Human faces, landscapes, musical instruments, and flowers are all brought to life with distorted and abstruse colors juxtaposed and intertwined into his personal narrative.

“Over decades of traveling the world and shifting between punk clubs and museums, I’ve come to understand painting through rhythm. For me, art is not just visual; it’s procedural. Attack, release, threshold. ART. Sometimes I begin with a defined limit, a minimal palette such as pink and black. Other times, I hurl myself into the canvas, physically and emotionally, then find the moment to pull back.”

–Paul Kostabi

As a teenager, Kostabi began playing music in the seminal punk rock band Youth Gone Mad. From a young age, he has believed in “Using Your Illusion,” a phrase which was modified and became the title of two multi-platinum selling albums by the band Guns N’ Roses. He produced and helped define the aesthetic for another influential rock band, White Zombie, and found continued success as the owner/operator of his own recording studio, Thunderdome Studios, in Piermont, New York.

Kostabi’s artwork has been shown in exhibitions in the US and internationally, including works presented alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in 1984. His paintings are also in the permanent collections of The Guggenheim, MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, MUSEION - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano, and many others. During a significant period in his career, he was represented by Park West Gallery, which showcased his work in the permanent collections of the Park West Museum in Southfield, Michigan, and SoHo, New York City, as well as in their galleries and cruise ship exhibitions—bringing his art to a global and diverse audience.

A sound and light installation by composer John Morton and visual artist Jo Yarrington will run concurrently with this RESONANCE in Building 35’s adjoining exhibition space, the Ned Harris Gallery.

According to Kostabi, this exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the sensory and emotional landscapes shaped by the artist’s dual experiences, capturing the sounds, rhythms, colors, and personalities that define them. “RESONANCE is a document of movement—geographic, psychological, and cultural. Each work is a moment of tension and release, a visual song. Through these pieces, I offer my frequency to the world.”

You’re invited:

School and community groups are invited to schedule a special tour of the exhibition with the artist or curator. Please call Jesse Heffler at (845) 947-7108 for more information.

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PAUL KOSTABI
RESONANCE

Exhibition Run: September 13 – October 26 Opening Reception: Saturday, September 13, 5-7PM

Gallery Hours: Fridays, 2-5PM, Saturdays and Sundays 1-5PM

WHERE: The Main Gallery at Building 35, GARNER Arts Center
ADDRESS: GARNER Historic District, 55 West Railroad Avenue, Garnerville, NY 10923
CONTACT: Jesse Heffler, Programs & Operations Director, (845) 947-7108; jesse@garnerartscenter.org

FOR APPOINTMENTS: (845) 947-7108 / info@garnerartscenter.org https://garnerartscenter.org/exhibitions

FOR PRESS:
Support for GARNER Arts Center is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Rockland County Tourism, The Village of West Haverstraw, The Town of Haverstraw, the GARNER Historic District, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.