Cedars-Sinai Blog

RxArt Project

Jul 25, 2019 Cedars-Sinai Staff

Wall and Ceiling Art Brings Calm, Fun to Pediatric Rooms

Nonprofit RxArt donated "wallpaper" to brighten rooms with lively artwork

For kids who need to visit the Maxine Dunitz Children's Health Center, the rooms now provide a friendly, colorful environment. Three artists—Sam Falls, Urs Fischer and Laura Owens—created original ceiling and wall art to distract, entertain and comfort children facing medical treatment.

The printed panels, which cover the rooms' ceilings and walls, feature elements such as flying lemons, cartoon elephants, birds, abstract splashes and bright blotches of color.

The New York City-based RxArt has a mission to "help children heal through the extraordinary power of visual art," which aligns perfectly with Cedars-Sinai's own commitment to art and healing.

RxArt founder Diane Brown was inspired to bring art into hospitals during a CAT scan.

"The kids are enjoying the fun and comfort the art brings them. Since the installation, we've had little patients actually ask to enter their hospital room."

—Jennifer Underhill, RN, assistant nurse manager for Pediatrics

ELEPHANTS EVERYWHERE

This wallpaper art by Urs Fischer is intended to entertain and amuse kids, while making them less anxious about treatment.

CAMOUFLAGE STRATEGY

There's no hiding the elephants in the room, but Urs Fischer's art does help distract attention from medical equipment.

EMOTIONAL RE-LEAF

Artist Sam Falls used enlarged stencils of leaves on the ceiling to create the soothing feeling of being in a woodland grove.

HIDDEN OBJECTS

A detail of Sam Falls' leaf-stenciled ceiling shows how the artist worked with existing features in the room to integrate them into the design.

LEMON AID

Flying lemons appear to zoom through a swirling sky in artist Laura Owens' wallpaper. Courtesy the artist; Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, Rome; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photography © Edmund Barr