NEW YORK - PRESBYTERIAN MORGAN STANLEY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
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JOEL MESLER
CITY/STATE
New York, NY
LOCATION IN HOSPITAL
Pediatric Radiology Department - Waiting Area
INSTALL DATE
2027
ABOUT THE INSTALLATION
In designing wallpapers for New York-Presbyterian Children's Hospital, Mesler extends his joyful visual language into the building’s interior spaces. Incorporating his signature hand-painted lettering and tropical motifs, these designs would bring warmth, optimism, and a sense of play to areas where children and families gather.
ABOUT THE HOSPITAL
New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, part of the Children’s Hospital of New York, brings comprehensive pediatric care to families in Washington Heights — from complex neonatal and critical care to all pediatric subspecialties. Located in Upper Manhattan, they are New York City’s only hospital dedicated solely to the care of children, and one of the largest providers of advanced children's health services in the tri-state area. The hospital is also a major international referral center, offering unmatched pediatric care and expertise from world-class doctors from Columbia.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joel Mesler’s (b. 1974 in Los Angeles, CA) artworks shed light on universal themes by filtering them through autobiography, humor, self-deprecation, and surprising compositional juxtapositions. Childhood memories fuel meditations on design and popular iconography, not to mention the liquid, fluid, and mutable nature of the painting process. In recent years, Mesler has explored the power of acceptance, allowing emotions—as well as the cultural forms in which they become constellated—to exist at the center of his project. Mesler has also broadened his visual range, incorporating new motifs in the patterned backgrounds that provide the foundation for each composition and experimenting with increasingly elaborate ways of rendering typography. Their wry surrealism and emphasis on words and phrases place Mesler’s paintings in dialogue with the work of artists like Ed Ruscha and Christopher Wool, who engage with language and the relationship between text and image. But Mesler’s concerns are very much his own, and however lighthearted their surfaces read upon first glance, his paintings pose serious questions: How is a self constituted when it is not consistent from moment to moment? Where does pain end and healing begin?
