Sarah Yuster Exhibit at the Staten Island Museum

Tuesday, 08 August 2006 12:15

Staten Island, NY – On Thursday, August 10, the Staten Island Museum will continue its popular Artists/Ideas Series by presenting HABITATS, BIOPHILES and BEASTS: Faces and Views from the World of Science and Nature by artist Sarah Yuster.  The exhibit consists of portraits and figure paintings, a remarkable rolodex of notables from the sciences, of both local and national stature and will run through January 7, 2007.

Artist, Sarah Yuster, is inspired by the writings and work of scientists like Harvard’s renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward O. Wilson.  In his “biophilia” hypotheses, Wilson defines biophilia as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.”  He and his colleagues offer that humans have an innate affinity for the natural world, probably a biologically based need integral to our development as individuals.  The adventurer-poet-science writer Diane Ackerman, the Hayden Planetarium’s, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and New York Aquarium’s, Martha Hiatt, are consummate examples of this tenet, as are local activists Bob Zink, founder of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, Protector of Pine Oak Woods’ Richard Buegler, the Museum’s own Curator of Natural Science, Ed Johnson, and Ray Matarazzo, Assistant Curator.

Yuster works with a camera, sketches and notes before composing a painting in the studio.  “Portraiture is an intimate experience” explains Yuster, “Initially subjects respond to my work, as I have to theirs, then we meet and get acquainted.  I look for the nuance that I consider core to their personality and create an atmosphere in collaboration with the sitter...a composition that infers their world.”