EXHIBITION: JASON BARD YARMOSKY

Jason Bard Yarmosky’s work centers on themes of aging, time, and memory—subjects the artist has been fascinated with since childhood. Born in 1987 in New York, Yarmosky developed a connection to these ideas through his close relationship with his grandparents, who were six decades his senior. Growing up, he often visited museums where he noticed the historical aspect of idealized beauty, which often emphasized youth, yet he yearned for a varied perspective that reflected a broader personal experience.

For over ten years, his grandparents were the subjects of his portraits, helping him explore the complex aspects of growing older including vulnerability, care, wisdom, and humor. These works became a celebration of aging, resisting cultural tendencies that diminish joy, individuality, and dignity in later life.

Through his practice, Yarmosky mixes traditional 17th- and 18th-century painting techniques with contemporary imagery, incorporating dreamlike elements, theatrical costume, and staged interiors that heighten a sense of intimacy. The use of costuming functions as a throughline in his work: it both conceals and reveals, able to disguise or bring out aspects of identity. The play of masks, uniforms, and imagined roles underscores how play is often discouraged as one grows older, yet reclaimed in the freedom of later life.

Yarmosky’s paintings move between tenderness and absurdity, between the heaviness of mortality and moments of celebration. His imagery suggests that humor and imagination persist even in the face of loss, and that through portraiture, costume, and the space of the interior, stories of aging are both preserved and transformed.

Yarmosky has visited the East End of Long Island since early childhood. Long known as an area of respite, he returned to his family’s home—architect Andrew Geller’s iconic Double Diamond House—in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, following the passing of his grandparents, as a restorative experience for his life and practice.

This exhibition is organized by Melanie Crader, museum director and curator of visual arts, with support from Philippa Content, museum manager and registrar and Claire Hunter, museum coordinator and curatorial associate.