Melissa Joseph: Tender

Transforming the Brooklyn Museum’s outdoor plaza into a space for gathering and reflecting, UOVO Prize–winner Melissa Joseph explores how public art fosters human connection. Based in Brooklyn and with family roots in India and Ireland, Joseph is known for her distinctive fiber-painting practice that considers themes of belonging and cultural inheritance. Her vivid works capture deceptively mundane moments, meditating on simple interactions between friends and loved ones—people eating, resting, laughing, and embracing.

For Tender, Joseph frames these touching scenes in hexagons, referencing the 16th-century marble mosaics that make up the famous floor of Italy’s Siena Cathedral. Reproductions of Joseph’s compositions are displayed on the Iris Cantor Plaza, enlarged to showcase her labor-intensive technique and sensuous materials. Accessible day and night, these gentle vignettes invite viewers to take a break from screens and notifications to recollect their own fleeting yet meaningful encounters. With its visual allusions to works that inspired onlookers centuries ago, Joseph's installation illuminates art’s eternal role in bringing us together.

Joseph (born United States, 1980) is the fifth recipient of the UOVO Prize, which recognizes the work of emerging Brooklyn-based artists. Winners receive a solo presentation at the Brooklyn Museum, a commission for a 50-by-50-foot mural on the facade of UOVO’s Brooklyn facility, and a $25,000 unrestricted cash grant. Joseph’s mural, which features three of the artworks in Melissa Joseph: Tender, is on view at UOVO Bushwick June 2025–June 2026.