By: Jack Stanley
studio visits
studio visits
Jason Yarmosky uses his realist oil paintings to explore themes of age, mortality and cultural diversity. The New York-born artist lends most of the inspiration behind his compositions to the close bond he had with his grandparents, in particular his late grandmother who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s. Somewhere (2017) portrays her wearing a faded unicorn mask to symbolize the intangible state that she was in while touching upon fleeting moments in life.
“These are people who I'm so close with and I've known them the longest in my entire life.” he explained to HYPEBEAST. “My grandmother had dementia, and it made me recognize the impermanence of all the relationships that we encounter.”
Last summer, Yarmosky self-launched an exhibition at the famed Double Diamond House in Westhampton Beach, New York. The presentation entitled “Lovers and Friends” featured a total of seven paintings that evoked lessons learned from his grandparents who “lived with an immortal attitude,” as he explained. For the exhibition as a whole, Yarmosky wanted to embrace the relationships he had with people of all different ages and cultures, with close friends of his also acting as subjects for his works.
Yarmosky continues to push the limits of traditional portrait painting and drawing in his new works. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited across the globe and stateside, including recent solo exhibitions at the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia, and the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor.
We sat down with the artist in his Brooklyn studio to discuss some of the major concepts and influences in his work. Read the full interview below.
Artist Jason Bard Yarmosky on the Impermanence of Human Life
Exploring the otherworldly artworks of the Brooklyn-based painter and sculptor.
Brooklyn, New York
jasonyarmosky.com
This idea of impermanence and relationships, is that a concept you've always explored in your work?
Yok & Sheryo
The focus of my work is always personal. I think that's one of the more important things I examine in my practice. I don't keep a diary or journal, but my work becomes personal because I put a lot of who I am into it. When someone looks at these images, they might encounter playful elements in them. But, there are underlying socio-political issues hidden within [the compositions]. For instance, we don’t celebrate old age in our society, we celebrate youth. These paintings have been an outlet for me to examine these issues. It’s an ongoing dialogue that I have with myself and with the outside world, you know?
For sure. Can you describe any other concepts you are examining in your practice?
There are concepts of time and mortality — two things that are inevitable to all of us as humans, right? We don’t talk about these issues, because I don't think most people want to. I have friends who are in their ‘80s and ‘90s. I see them regularly as well as my friends. I wanted to celebrate diversity and touch on those concepts that I mentioned in the “Lovers and Friends” show.
Erchen: It’s very important that each restaurant does different things. We’re inspired by many different eateries in Asia. So Soho is quite minimal, it’s very food focused. It’s in Soho so loads of people are coming in and out and they only want to spend maybe 30 minutes. With Borough we were inspired by the late night grill places and drinking places in Tokyo. We have a highball machine here. Everything revolves around the late night eating style. I think the inspiration comes from a different area but they’re all kinds of Asian eateries and it filters through different restaurants.
Wai Ting: It’s just trying to bring different elements of Asian culture to London. At Borough we did the KTV room downstairs, and we’ve got the hatch there, almost back to our street food days.
Those were never meant to be literal. That's not how I ever saw them. It's not “aging superheroes” at all. The superhero costumes are essentially metaphors. In our society, we admire these superhuman characters because they’re almost immortal. By placing these costumes on elderly subjects, it touches upon this idea of mortality, but also vulnerability. The latter is such an important part of the human condition. I’m attempting to reference the vulnerability that my grandmother was experiencing with dementia and Alzheimer's. I think that putting her in a Wonder Woman costume was to symbolize her strength.
HYPEBEAST: One of your biggest shows last year was “Lovers and Friends” at the iconic Double Diamond House. Tell us about the notable influences surrounding the body of work that were presented at the show.
Jason Yarmosky: It was a collaborative effort between me and my best friend. We wanted to bring together the different people that inspired us in our everyday lives. For me, For me, it came at a time which was right after my grandmother passed.
This piece in particular evolved as I worked on it. I didn’t have this idea solidified from the beginning, it presented itself along the way which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. It's just part of the process. And I let that process kind of take me where it needs to go because at some point if a painting is going to be speaking louder to you than you are to it, then that's when you know it's there. It’s a conversation.
One of your more recent projects is the Superhero series. What was the concept or inspiration behind it?
Good advice is work a lot, experiment a lot, and see a lot of art. Find out who the artist is who you really admire and what do you like about their work, what can you bring into the work, but also how can you experiment with materials and make paint do something that's your own language. At least for me, that's always been really important to my practice.
“I'm personally drawn to work that addresses strong questions, work that I can connect with that hits me.”
cj hendry
“I think the best part of being an artist is the process. The journey.”
Sheryo: Not as much as we like to. Now, we’re very busy with studio work and traveling to different locations in Southeast Asia.
Yok: Yeah, we’re busy finding places to do installations. It’s our new thing. We also travel often to learn niche handicrafts. We get stoked about going to places like Indonesia and spend months learning how to do Batik and making other local artisan works.
“There are elements of creativity in what I do but it's very process-focused work.”
Cj Hendry
Everybody creates art differently. I'm personally drawn to work that addresses strong questions, work that I can connect with that hits me. And I think most of the work that does hit me in that way comes from an artist who has a strong personal connection to their work.
Do you believe artists have a responsibility to shed light on societal issues in their work?
I think the realism in some of these oil-based works, especially these 12-foot black and white pieces where you can see all the details is important — it’s necessary to depict age in a really physical way. In other works, I have some things planned where I don't need that realism. I’m always experimenting with things and finding ways to execute ideas that translate what I’m trying to explore.
What attracts you to realism?
Yeah she had been to my shows before! My grandma's someone who would always say, “You're so special. I love you my grandson. Like no matter what you can't do wrong.” And all of her grandchildren felt that way. It was so nice. She had this amazing way of making all of us feel special.
Had your grandmother seen your work?
The closest thing I've come to painting myself, had been this last series where I'm taking different people of different ages and races like the people who I am closest to in my life. It could be my grandfather, my godson, homies or whomever I love and bringing them together in my compositions. They necessarily don’t even have to know each other in real life. That concept, I’d say, was the closest thing to a self portrait from me. But when it actually comes to physically painting myself, it’ll probably happen when I'm old.
You specialize in portraiture, have you ever made a self-portrait?
How do you deal with outside pressures when it comes to creating art?
I have so many artists that I'm inspired by like Kiki Smith and William Kentridge. It's funny because when I was younger I only really knew the Ninja Turtles like Michelangelo, Leonardo, etc. I was a fan of the show and the Renaissance artists that they were named after. As I got older, I became a fan of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velasquez. And it just gradually grew from there.
Which artists are you inspired by?
During the Renaissance, there were so many different trades that people were pursuing. But the thing people forget is they we just mastering one thing because life expectancy was so short. You didn't have antibiotics, if you get pricked by a thorn on a rose you're going to die kind of scenario. I’m amazed by the crazy work and mastery in such a short period of time. Like look at Mozart, creating symphonies and when he was just 12 years old.
What makes you particularly interested in Renaissance artists?
Yok: We would look at our drawings and imagine how it would be great if they were worlds that you could go inside, touch and move around. That's where the installation inspiration came from, I guess.
Sheryo: It was kind of natural, really, a progression from 2D to 3D. Yeah.
What about installations are you both most fascinated by?
Yok: We’re working on an immersive installation at the Paddle 8 auction house at the Lower East Side of New York City. We’re creating this nine-foot wooden sculpture of a middle finger with Donald Trump’s tombstone on top.
Sheryo: It’s this pretty big basement spot. We are making sculptures as well as creating the upholstery and benches. It has a really dingy and dark vibe. It’s kind of a lounge room setting. It’s going to launch this coming fall season.
What are you both working on right now?
Archie: We aim to hire people that are extremely multidisciplinary. But at the same time they don't have to have done everything, because in this studio, Jeff and I have not done everything and the principle of this studio is that we won't.
What most people don't have that Dillon, Phil and Ana all have is the rare layer on top of professionalism and the ability to design — the ability to not have ego, to want to learn, and to want to try things that aren’t comfortable. When you’re uncomfortable, good stuff happens because you’re able to fall back on and grow your basic skill set. Dillon didn't design shoes before he got here — he just wanted to. Now he's a shoe designer. To Phil's earlier point, that's why PLAYLAB is a school.
When you decided to grow your team, what qualities were you looking for in new members?
Dillon: Residency programs and other resources for artists — let’s make a school someday.
Jeff: I want to make a penny press called “Penny, Pressed.” The image that goes on the penny press is a penny. I'm not even sure if that’s legal, but it's in the works. I also want to make more art. I think we need more of it and that everybody thrives off of it.
Archie: I want to do it all. I want to see PLAYLAB continue to thrive and grow and morph and change, and I want to be surprised by it every year. I love the projects we work on, but I love the studio more than anything. The studio is the project because it's art.
What's next for PLAYLAB? Is there something that you've always wanted to design through PLAYLAB that you guys haven't touched yet?
When you work on projects with large corporate organizations, how do you manage to strike a balance between what the client wants and PLAYLAB’s creative identity?
Jeff: Back in the beginning when it was just Archie and I, we would get fired from projects because we would throw back ideas that they didn't ask for. But we just kept persisting throughout every year, we just kept making sure that people understood what we think. Now we've gotten to the point where people expect these ideas from us — everyone from big corporations to smaller clients.
Archie: We've tried to craft an environment where people come to us for us — not for a specific type of project. But at the same time I think that our job is to be honest about who we are and what we're doing and what we're interested in. We never present something to the client that we don't think is sick. As a result, sometimes the client isn’t the right fit. But most often, the client is like, “Holy sh*t.” And that's what we look for. The feeling in the studio when that hits is like a drug.
What is the most ridiculous request you've ever gotten from a client?
Dillon: We don't get ridiculous requests, we give them. We tell people to do some pretty outrageous sh*t, and a lot of what we hear back is, "This is f*cking amazing. Wait, rewind. How do we make this?" The more nuanced part is then making our ideas real, in tandem with other people, with a budget, in the real world.
Archie: It’s also just about ridiculous situations, which are the byproducts of working on projects with human beings. With the Louis Vuitton show, the moment nobody sees is Virgil texting all of the designers in the group thread saying he wanted to bring a DJ and throw a huge party in the center of the show right when it ended. Situations like that and learning the different ways people you work with think are the evidence of a project. Those little moments are like symbols, and every project has them.
“We want to be the studio that wraps its arms and collaborates with an infinite amount of people to learn — not to take full responsibility.”
What is the typical workflow of a studio that has “no particular focus” but also has many projects to focus on at once like?
Jeff: We have so many things going at once, so there's no typical day. On any given morning everyone knows they can walk in and we'll be like, "What you thought you're going to do today is not going to be anywhere close to what's going to happen, so let's shift gears." It's changing all the time, which is how we like it.
Dylan: Day to day is not a real thing in this studio. There's a rough energy level and thought level that we have to keep consistent, but in terms of projects we are always pivoting. When I come into the studio with a rough idea of what the timeline of my day looks like, it generally gets moved around because we're working on projects simultaneously that are all so different in nature and are always changing.
Do you find that working on multiple projects simultaneously makes each separate process stronger?
Phil: Yeah, sometimes your work for a project will have to be put on hold, but then you interweave it with some of the learnings you have from encountering another project in that time gap. Now you can bring some of those teachings back into that first project that you had to put on pause, and sometimes that can really work to the project's benefit, even if it's really subconscious.
Anna: It's really helpful that we're not working on all branding projects or all experiential projects. I can get inspired by something that we reference for a branding project at 9 a.m. EST, and at 1:00 p.m. EST it's one of the main ideas for a separate experiential project.
“The real magic of the project wasn't the two weeks that it existed and was beautiful - it was the drudgery of the work to get there.”
By: Keith Estiler
What is your approach to creating these paintings?
What’s your creative process like?
I start off with preliminary sketches or writings for projects and then it will evolve gradually. After that, there's the process of conceptualizing the work and then actually beginning the work. You know, I'm one of those guys who go to the lumber yard, gets wood and builds my own frames as well as stretch my own canvases. I always try to have a real connection with each of my pieces from the beginning. Once I start painting, I get in the flow and sometimes, I forget to eat or drink when the ideas come to me. I can’t really shut my mind off.
I personally don’t pay attention to that stuff. I'm out here painting old people, you know what I mean? I didn't know that was going to be my lane since college. I never wondered, “Who's going to buy that?” It was just what I wanted to create. I think being around so many old people in my life affected my perspective in general. There’s that classic example of getting really old and looking back at your life and asking yourself if you have any regrets. I think the best part of being an artist is the process. The journey.