Press Releases

New Mickalene Thomas Installation Debuts at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health

Located in the lobby of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital, the mosaic includes images of the late Supreme Court Justice’s favorite flowers: freesias and white hydrangeas

This is the twelfth collaboration between RxART and NYC Health + Hospitals

May 22, 2025

Brooklyn, NY — NYC Health + Hospitals and RxART today debuted a new large-scale installation by Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas, Freesia on My Mind: The Beauty of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Located in the lobby of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital on the campus of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, the mosaic will welcome patients, visitors, and staff as they enter the hospital. Justice Ginsburg worked tirelessly throughout her career to advance health equity, supporting fair and just opportunity for all people to achieve optimal health regardless of circumstance. In honor of the hospital’s namesake, the bold mosaic includes images of the late Supreme Court Justice’s favorite flowers: freesias and white hydrangeas. The mural showcases a meticulously arranged collage of paper cutouts, combining solid blocks of blues, yellows, and oranges to evoke a sky-like backdrop for a lush landscape of found floral imagery. At 76 feet by 8 feet, the mosaic covers an entire wall of the lobby mezzanine. The mosaic was supported by the Rallis Foundation and the Ruth Stanton Foundation and made possible by RxART in partnership with the Arts in Medicine department at NYC Health + Hospitals and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.

This is the twelfth collaboration between RxArt and NYC Health + Hospitals. Previous collaborations include Fun #1 (2022) by Nina Chanel Abney at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, Untitled (2020) by Derrick Adams at NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, Untitled (undated) by Keith Haring installed posthumously in 2018 at NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, and Untitled (2013) by Kenny Scharf at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County.

“The Arts in Medicine department is thrilled to bring this important work into the NYC Health + Hospitals system,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Assistant Vice President of Arts in Medicine Larissa Trinder. “Mickalene Thomas is a significant voice in the advancement of social and cultural dialogue that embraces representation, particularly for Black women. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom the mural is named after, defined an era supporting health equity, including gender equality and women’s rights. It is inspirational to have both women portrayed in the lobby of South Brooklyn Health. Mickalene joins other important artists in the collection including a significant mural by Romare Bearden, at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue.”

“For almost 150 years, our hospital has been rooted in providing compassionate, patient-centered care to our diverse community. Mickalene Thomas’s mosaic, incorporating Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s favorite freesias and white hydrangeas, powerfully reflects the dignity and respect that define our values,” said Svetlana Lipyanskaya, MPA, FACHE, Chief Executive Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health. “The flowers, chosen to honor her enduring legacy, symbolize the resilience and grace we witness daily in our patients and staff. It’s a fitting tribute as we continue to grow and adapt, ensuring we remain a leading provider of healthcare services for generations to come.” 

“We are incredibly proud to have collaborated with Mickalene Thomas—one of the most important and visionary artists of our time—on this transformative project,” said Diane Brown, Founder and President of RxART. “Her mosaic is both a powerful tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and an uplifting work of art that brings beauty, dignity, and inspiration into the heart of South Brooklyn Health. At RxART, we are honored to work with great artists to help create spaces that support healing through art, and this installation exemplifies the meaningful impact that great art can have in a healthcare setting.”

“We’re proud to support the vital work of the Arts in Medicine department at NYC Health + Hospitals,” said Laurie Tisch, founder and president of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. “Mickalene’s exquisite mural will bring beauty and joy to everyone entering the Ruth Bader Ginsberg pavilion and is a fitting tribute to her legacy and to the strength and resilience of the South Brooklyn Health community.”

“Public art has the power to transform our public spaces into places of connection, healing, and contemplation, and Mickalene Thomas’s powerful new mosaic at NYC Health + Hospitals’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital does exactly that,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. “I applaud the Arts in Medicine department at NYC Health + Hospitals and RxART for their visionary embrace of the healing power of the arts, and for bringing yet another extraordinary artwork in the hospital system’s remarkable collection.”

“I’m honored to collaborate with RxArt – a visionary organization – and the larger NYC Health + Hospitals community to bring this mosaic to life for patients, staff, and visitors,” said Mickalene Thomas. “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s favorite flowers – freesias and hydrangeas – dance throughout the mural with an energy that emulates the joy, strength, and power that she embodied. My hope is that the mural offers an enduring sense of inspiration and resiliency to the community, just as the Justice uplifted and empowered us throughout her life and legacy.”

Mickalene Thomas is a renowned multidisciplinary artist known for her striking portraits of Black women, often embellished with rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Exploring themes of identity, race, and gender, her work explores themes of Black female identity and its complexities within Western culture. A Tony-nominated co-producer, curator, educator, and mentor, Thomas made history in 2023 as the first Black queer femme artist with a Yale University scholarship in her name. Her work is held in prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

The NYC Health + Hospitals art collection dates back to the 1930s, when the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project hired artists to create works for government buildings. Its collection of more than 7,500 artworks includes paintings, mosaics, photographs, sculptures, installation art, and murals by both emerging and established professional artists. The collection includes works by some of America’s leading artists, such as Romare Bearden, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, James Van Der Zee, Mary Frank, Betty Blayton, Candida Alvarez, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, and Keith Haring. More than an art collection, these works contribute to healing environments, activate spaces, engage staff, promote visual acuity, and expand access to the arts for 43,000 employees and more than 1.2 million patients who receive care at NYC Health + Hospitals facilities. Nearly 850 works of art in NYC Health + Hospitals’ collection are available to view worldwide on the free Bloomberg Connects app, and these works have informational wall text and a QR code leading to additional material on the app.

The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital on the campus of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health opened in May 2023. The 11-story, 351-bed hospital includes a storm-resilient design, a flood-proof Emergency Department, private patient rooms and state-of-the-art equipment to serve South Brooklyn and its neighboring communities. Construction of the new hospital was funded by $923 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and includes upgrades to the rest of the health care campus, including a four-foot wall to withstand a 500-year storm and flood-resilient power, heating, cooling, and water systems. The new hospital is a major component of the extensive process to repair and protect the health care campus after sustaining significant damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

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About NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine Department
The Arts in Medicine department at NYC Health + Hospitals seeks to foster the emotional well-being and promote healing and wellness for all patients and their families, employees, and the greater community by utilizing the arts, including literary, visual, and performing arts throughout the health care system. In addition to managing the system’s significant visual arts collection, the Arts in Medicine department encourages evidenced based practices and provides technical assistance to all of the system’s health care facilities and clinics. This is accomplished by combining artistic innovation and education into a comprehensive health care continuum that supports the healing benefits of the arts. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org/artsinmedicine/.

About NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health
NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health and its 351-bed Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital and Health & Wellness Institute is one of the public health system’s 10 acute care health care campuses that offers general and acute medical care to adults and children. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital offers modern trauma and emergency care, inpatient services for primary and acute care in general medicine, adult medicine, pediatrics, general surgery, medical and surgical sub-specialties, coronary care, intensive care, obstetrics and gynecology, midwifery, neonatology, critical care, rehabilitation medicine, psychiatry, and behavioral health. Its Health & Wellness Institute with over 40 ambulatory care practices provides patient and caregiver centered primary and specialty care to residents of South Brooklyn and the surrounding communities. The hospital has designations as a Certified Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Center, an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, an accredited Baby-Friendly Hospital, a U.S. News & World Reporthigh performing hospital, a SAFE Center of Excellence under the Sexual Assault Reform Act, Designated AIDS Center (DACs), and Level 2 Perinatal Center. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org/southbrooklynhealth. 

About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation. We are a network of 11 hospitals, trauma centers, neighborhood health centers, nursing homes, and post-acute care centers. We are a home care agency and a health plan, MetroPlus. Our health system provides essential services to more than one million New Yorkers every year in more than 70 locations across the city’s five boroughs. Our diverse workforce of more than 43,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About RxART
RxART is a pioneering nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of visual art and healthcare. The organization’s mission is to pair leading contemporary artists with pediatric hospitals on projects designed to humanize healthcare environments and improve the patient experience. Since its founding in 2000, RxART has championed the benefits of creative environments on patient outcomes and experience. RxART pursues this mission through collaborations with celebrated artists on site-specific, museum-quality art installations designed for children’s hospitals across the nation and fabricated in medically approved materials. These uplifting projects are at the forefront of an accelerating movement to better integrate art into wellness and improve healthcare settings for pediatric patients, families, and providers across the United States. Learn more at www.rxart.org.