Enhancing the healing environment

The visual arts can bring a sense of humanity to clinical spaces, art can lift the spirits, calm, distract, soothe and reassure. We artistically decorate our wards, corridors, waiting rooms and treatment spaces to ensure these hospital spaces make people feel better. Both of our hospital sites have a growing art collection on display throughout the environment.

Often artwork is commissioned site-specifically in response to the environment, a process which involves close collaboration with clinicians and patients in that department. We also acquire artworks through donation, purchase from local artists and curate temporary exhibition displays.

 

Examples of some of our projects include:

CT Department entrance at QEH

Designer Adrian Barclay from Hospital Graphics was commissioned by the Trust to produce a series of uplifting artworks for the entrance to our new state-of-the-art MRI scanner and CT scanner at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH). The artwork was created site-specifically, complementing the architecture of the new building and referencing both the Imaging department and the surrounding local area.  

The floor-to-ceiling feature walls show abstract graphic shapes inspired by the scanning equipment used in the department, with a colour palette that connects to the external cladding on the building.

The artwork on the staircase wall links to the local area by representing a stylised illustration of Greenwich and the Thames landscape across five panels. At the top of the lift, a large photo of St Paul’s and the Millennium Bridge greets visitors.

Wards 14 & 16 at QEH

Wards 14 & 16 are home to commissioned illustrations by Marles and Barclay, developed in close collaboration with patients and staff on the wards.

Artwork on Ward 14 focuses on the local area with stylised imagery of local landmarks and recognisable places in Greenwich and Bexley, and along the Thames. Imagery provides a window to the outside world with pieces depicting mountains, beaches and rivers in an uplifting yet calming colour palette.

The Elixir Gallery

The Elixir Gallery was established at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2008 and has been providing quarterly exhibitions of work by professional and semi-professional artists, arts and community organisations ever since. The Gallery is located close to the West Entrance to the Hospital and is open 24 hours a day, the space is fully accessible to people using wheelchairs. 

Riverside

Riverside is home to the inpatient wards and Treatment Centre at University Hospital Lewisham. As a part of construction funding was provided by Carillion to purchase a number of works of art to complement the new building.

• Blue Well by Chris Marshall, a tower of coloured glass and metal located externally to Riverside in a seating area
• Reds by acclaimed artist Rana Begum, a series of resin panels in the main Riverside entrance and along the ground floor corridor. 

Riverside also contains a large number of works on canvas by Tony Daley, an artist whose work is displayed in the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and numerous other major galleries across the world.