About Sarah Yuster

Sarah Yuster is a painter known for her urban landscapes and insightful portraits. Commitment to painting began at the HS of Art & Design. Yuster earned her fine arts degree at SVA,aLended the Greek Language Center for five years and the Italian Cultural Institute for two years. Her home and studio is on Staten Island, NYC’s quiet borough, where she lives with her husband, musicianRobert Mosci. They have a son and daughter.

Artist Website: https://linktr.ee/SarahYusterArt

Artist Email: sarahyuster.art@gmail.com

Artist Statement

Armed with the tenet that small, ordinary truths often illuminate larger fields, I paint with an eye towards the tension and beauty that can occur when man, technology and the natural world convene at random points. These images – plain, familiar, observed from familiar angles, are my visually transposed moments of willed isolation and affection for an inherent sense of belonging.We all share the common denominator of unadorned minutes. Our minds idle or wander while we perform menial tasks or wait at a stoplight, eyes barely focusing on the immediately available.These peripheral sights, unremarkable subjects, are quiet, visible anchors to our environment, neighborhoods and each other. I care to paint them because they have the subdued strength of an emotional shorthand, like a glance between siblings in the presence of a parent. These works are celebration and homage to the concept of home, the commonplace, an alchemy wherein the prosaic becomes poetic, and the everyday is fertile ground for the creation of art.Portraiture, a more intimate endeavor, attracts me to the interplay between sitter and artist. Trust, respect and boundaries may or may not be signaled. Recording, via brushstroke, a spirit shaped by its’ history, an essential tale can be told. Countenance is a most eloquent feature, embodying character and humanity. I embrace the formidable challenge of transposing a soul, a life, an intellect into a two dimensional image.An early introduction to oil painting as a pre-teen felt like my native language to be learned. The medium, for me, provides limitless facility for conveying ideas, narratives, experience and unending opportunity to become more fluent.

New Brunswick Art Salon 2025 Oil, Sculpture, and Mixed Media: “The Mundane in Motion”

Education

  • Greek Language Center, New York, NY (1985-1990) (1999 – 2002)
  • Italian Cultural Institute, New York, NY (1985-1986)
  • School of Visual Arts, New York, NY (BFA 1980)
  • High School of Art and Design, New York, NY

Solo Exhibitions

  • Peripheral Vision – Art Lab Gallery at Snug Harbor Cultural Center NYC Nov 2024 – Dec 2024
  • Biophiles – A New Generation – Biddle House Museum Conference House Park Oct 2022 – Jan 2023
  • Close to Home/Staying Home – gallery show canceled due to pandemic 2021, hosted online at SarahYuster.com and ARTLab SI’s website
  • Native Soil – (6 month major retrospective) – Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art 2018
  • External Forces – Lenape Gallery, NYC Parks NYC 2015-2016
  • 25 Year Mini-Retrospective – Murray Berman Gallery at The Bernikow JCC, NYC 2013/14
  • Streetscapes and Land Surveys – Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art 2008
  • Habitats, Biophiles and Beasts – Staten Island Museum 2006 -2007
  • Firefighters Commemorative – Civil Courthouse SI, NY 2002
  • RH Tugs, SI,NY – An Unmistakable Staten Island Accent 2000 – 2001
  • Distance Runners Hall of Fame – Utica, NY 1999-2001
  • On the Road – New York Road Runners Club, NYC, NY One Woman Show 1999
  • Incidence- Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art 1998
  • Roads Taken – One Woman Show, Kade Gallery [Wagner College], NY 1997
  • After The Leni Lenape – Portraits of An Island and Its People, Borough Hall 1989

Group Exhibitions

  • Vulnerable Landscapes – Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, April – December 2023
  • Arc of Twenty Years – Noble Maritime Museum *co-curator
  • Native Ensemble: Artists Chronicle Staten Island’s Natural Spaces – Lenape Gallery, NYC Parks Department 2015 *curator
  • Juried Landscape Exhibition/ Video Installation “Twenty-Nine Years” – Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover DE 2014
  • High Art – selection from a Decade of New Acquisitions- Smithsonian’s Air& Space Museum, Washington DC 2013
  • New York Marathon Exhibit; Waitz and Corbitt honored – NaPonal Track Hall of Fame, NY Armory Track 2012
  • Artists Respond to September 11 – National Lighthouse Museum, NYC 2011 *curator
  • Islandscapes, From the Ferry to the Fairyland – Wagner Gallery SI, NY 2000
  • National Academy of Design – NY, NY 2000
  • Sarah Rentschler Gallery – Hudson, NY 1999
  • SOHO 20, “Salon show” – NY, NY 1998
  • New Acquisitions, (portrait of Saul Bellow) Nat’l Portrait Gallery-Smithsonian InsPtuPon, Washington, D.C 1997
  • Aspects of Reality – Five Artists, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, SI, NY 1993
  • National Academy of Design – NY, NY 1992
  • National Academy of Design – NY, NY 1990
  • Helio Gallery, group show – NY, NY 1989
  • NY State Legislative Recognition as Woman in History [Painting] 1989

Awards

  • 2024 DCA Grant for Peripheral Vision
  • 2022 NYSCA Grant for Biophiles – A New Generation
  • 2021 selected as one of 15 New Yorkers by Pepsi’s “It’s a New York Thing”, a $10,000 award based on “creative spirit and community connection”
  • 2020 DCA Grant for Close to Home series
  • 2020 NYSCA ABC Regrant (Small Truths, my arts & literacy program for public school students @ PS20)
  • 2018 DCA Grant for Native Soil
  • 2018 NYSCA ABC Regrant
  • Between 2009 – 2017 four awards for the NYSCA ABC Regrant (Small Truths, my arts and literacy program for public school students)
  • 2015 NYSCA External Forces – paintings of non visual artists in situ outdoors (musicians, dancers poets, writers)
  • 2014 NYC DCA Small Truths – a documentary film based on writings and artwork
  • 2014 NYSCA Original Work Grant – Serendipity Chronicled, with Footnotes 2004 NYC Council on the Arts Encore Award for Biophiles, pt 1
  • 2002 NYFA Encore Award for the Firefighter’s Commemorative
  • 1999 NYSCA Original Work Grant – Incidence and Homescapes
  • 1989 NYC Council on the Arts – After the Leni Lenape – portraits of an island and its’ people