Client: University of Kentucky Hospital

Overview

This project was to bring an uplifting feeling to family members that are visiting loved ones in the hospital. The location is in the main stairwell located by the surgery center. This piece is water based pigment and medium on canvas with the scale of 108″x 80″.

Goals

This painting represents the Creator and the Creation. The Maker is at work generating the universe full of people, plants, animals, insects, and technology. The central figure is looking at the right hand, representing the focus logic requires, while assembling life. The left hand is working blindly, which defines the structure of intuition and creativity, wielding innovation and giving birth to technology represented by various styles of airplanes. The halo behind the figure is the Fibonacci sequence, with the solar system in motion above. Below the feet of the central figure is the globe with a baby inside. The child is in the space of the ocean symbolizing how we as people are linked to everyone physically and spiritually. On the hand of the child is a blooming Lotus flower symbolizing enlightenment. The dragonflies and birds side by side at the top and the bee and humming bird circling the passion flower at the bottom, represent how all creatures begin small, but can grow very large. The dolphins and sea lion show how mammals live not only on land, but also in water. These figures are placed in a circular composition to represent Time, Life, and Death.

Process

Creation of projects like these is a collaborative process with the people who inhabit the space and the visitors who will be interacting with the art. This not only involves working closely with those who manage the space in a physical sense (engineers and architects) but also, for instance, a collaboration with the doctors and patients of the University of Kentucky Pediatric Oncology Center, for whom I created six large pieces that told a story based in whimsical and fantastic imagery, allowing both children and adults a chance to journey out of the everyday, as far as their minds could take them.