Melissa Joseph

Melissa Joseph‘s work considers themes of memory, family history, and the politics of how we occupy spaces. Working primarily with needle felt and found objects, she intentionally alludes to the labors of women as well as experiences as a second generation American and the unique juxtapositions of diasporic life.

Joseph received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, her MAT in Art Education from the Rhode Island School of Design, her AAS in textile surface design from the Fashion Institute of Technology and her BA from New York University. She has undertaken residencies at Greenwich House Pottery Residency, New York; Museum of Arts and Dsign, New York; Archie Bray Foundation, Helena and the Fountainhead Arts Residency, Miami amongst others. She is the recipient of the 2025 UOVO Prize and was a Hopper Prize finalist.

Josephs‘s work is currently on view in her solo presentation Tender at the Brooklyn Museum.

Selected solo exhibitions include: Tender, Brooklyn Museum, New York, US (2025); no words, Soy Capitán, Berlin, DE (2025); A Wide Action is not a Width, Artpace San Antonio, US (2024); Art Production Fund Art in Focus, Rockefeller Center, New York, US (2024); Irish Exit, Margot Samel, New York, US (2023); Conflicting Truths, List Gallery, Swarthmore, US (2023); Née, REGULARNORMAL, New York, US (2021) and Fleisher Art Memorial, Philaldephia, US (2019).

Selected group exhibitions include: 00:00:01, Public Gallery, London, UK (2025); Poetics of Dimensions, ICA San Francisco, US (2024); Brooklyn Artists Show, Brooklyn Museum, US (2024); Recent Acquisitions Exhibition, ICA Miami, US (2024); British Textile Biennial, Whitaker Museum, London, UK (2023); Crisis of Image, Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, US (2023); (De)Framing Identity, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Utah US (2022); Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, US (2022); Felt Experience, Brattleboro Museum and Art Centre, Brattleboro, US (2022); Diasporic Rhizome, South Asia Institute, Chicago, US (2021); Held Dear, with Chelsea Nader, PAFA Museum, Philadelphia, US (2019); Immaterielle Häutungen, Lite Haus Gallery, Berlin, DE (2018) and the 78th Annual Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, US (2017).