A-ARTs: Scarville as 6th UOVO Prize recipient

Keisha Scarville. PIC: Ana Dias.

AS the sixth annual UOVO Prize recipient, Keisha Scarville is awarded a $25,000 cash prize, a public mural at UOVO Brooklyn, and a public installation on the Brooklyn Museum’s Iris Cantor Plaza.

The Brooklyn Museum is pleased to award the 2026 UOVO Prize—which recognizes the work of emerging Brooklyn-based artists—to Keisha Scarville (born Brooklyn, New York, 1975). Selected by a jury of Brooklyn Museum curators, Scarville is the sixth annual recipient of the prestigious prize, receiving a public installation on the Brooklyn Museum’s Iris Cantor Plaza, a commission for a fifty-by-fifty-foot public art installation on the facade of UOVO’s Brooklyn facility in Bushwick, and a $25,000 unrestricted cash grant. The artist’s first large-scale installation, Where Salt Meets Black Water, curated by Pauline Vermare, Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography, Brooklyn Museum, will open on the Brooklyn Museum’s plaza on May 8, 2026.

“As a Brooklyn native, I am deeply honored to be this year’s recipient of the UOVO Prize,” says Scarville. “My images, inspired by my Caribbean heritage, occupy a space between two lands. I look forward to realizing this installation at the Brooklyn Museum, a cultural cornerstone of New York City. This prize represents a dream fulfilled and brings me great joy to celebrate the Caribbean diaspora in Brooklyn.”

Rooted in a practice that combines photography, collage, and archival material to explore themes of migration, memory, and absence, the installation reflects directly on Scarville’s experiences as part of the Caribbean diaspora in the borough. Born in Brooklyn to Guyanese parents who immigrated to New York in the 1960s, Scarville offers a tribute to her family by exploring connections between material objects such as fabric and photography. The Museum stoop and adjacent walls will feature vinyl reproductions of striking black-and-white photographs and still lifes, many of which are part of the series Mama’s Clothes. The series overlays imagery onto garments belonging to the artist’s late mother, Alma. Through this dynamic installation on the Museum’s plaza, Scarville transforms individual remembrance and loss into communal memory and shared belonging, offering a sanctuary for visitors to gather and reflect. The title of the installation also draws on ideas of care and renewal, referencing the dark, mineral-rich “black waters” found in Guyana believed to carry healing properties.

“We’re thrilled to present the UOVO Prize to Keisha Scarville, whose work so powerfully reflects the lived experiences of Brooklyn’s Caribbean community—an essential part of our borough’s past, present, and future,” says Pauline Vermare. “It feels deeply meaningful for this work to be accessible to all on the Museum’s plaza, welcoming everyone into the Museum through stories of memory, migration, and belonging.”

“We’re delighted to continue our partnership with UOVO through the sixth annual UOVO Prize, an award that reflects our longstanding mission to champion Brooklyn artists,” says Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum. “It’s an honor to present Keisha Scarville’s work on our plaza, a tribute to the Caribbean community whose creativity, traditions, and histories have profoundly shaped Brooklyn’s cultural life.”

Scarville’s installation on the facade of UOVO Brooklyn features an archival photograph that her mother purchased when she moved to the United States in the 1960s, and which Scarville has preserved. This image depicting a mother and child is juxtaposed against a garment belonging to the artist’s mother. The installation will be on view until October 2026.

“The UOVO Prize reflects our commitment to supporting the artists who shape Brooklyn’s creative and cultural landscape,” adds Steven Guttman, UOVO Founder and Co-Chairman. “Keisha Scarville’s work, grounded in textiles and personal history, speaks to the powerful intersection of art and fashion that is so central to our community and to our work as a company. We’re honored to support her vision.”

Previous UOVO Prize winners are John Edmonds, Baseera Khan, Oscar yi Hou, Suneil Sanzgiri, and Melissa Joseph.

Keisha Scarville weaves together themes dealing with loss, latencies and the elusive body. Her work has been widely exhibited, including at the International Center of Photography; the Studio Museum of Harlem; the Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London; the ICA Philadelphia; the Contact Gallery in Toronto; Light Work; the Brooklyn Museum; Higher Pictures; and the Webber Gallery in Los Angeles. Recent group exhibitions include the 2nd Bienal das Amazônias (2025, curated by Manuela Moscoso); Alma, Les Rencontres D’Arles (2025); The Rose, Lumber Room, Portland, Oregon (2023, curated by Justine Kurland); If I Had a Hammer, FotoFest Biennial, Houston (2022); and All of Them Witches, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2020, curated by Dan Nadel and Laurie Simmons). Her work is held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, George Eastman Museum, Denver Art Museum, and the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum. She has participated in residencies at Light Work, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, WOPHA, Baxter Street at CCNY, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In addition, her work has appeared in Vice magazine, Small Axe magazine, and the New York Times, where her work has also received critical reviews. She was a recipient of the 2023 Creator Labs Photo Fund and was awarded the inaugural Saltzman Prize in Photography in 2024. She is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University and a faculty member at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her first book, lick of tongue rub of finger on soft wound (2023), was published by MACK and shortlisted in the 2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards. Her second book with MACK is scheduled to be published in spring 2026.

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