Immersive Murals for Parkland Hospital’s Burn Unit
For this project commission, I had the opportunity to blend two of my loves — medicine and art — to paint floor-to-ceiling immersive murals for the Burn Unit of Parkland Hospital. Parkland is Dallas County’s safety net hospital, and it has one of the largest civilian burn centers in the US. This hospital will always hold a special place in my heart because it is where I received most of my formative training as a medical student. This project was completed in partnership with the Parkland Center for Innovation and Value.
Time Lapse
See below for time-lapse snippets Parkland Hospital put together of the process from start to finish:
Behind-the-scenes process
Phase 1: Creating the concept art
The underwater theme of the mural was inspired by the brilliant nurses in the Burn Unit, who had already worked to create a healing space for patients by adding ocean stickers and decals over the walls to play “I Spy” games. Using these ideas, I designed the mural to be an immersive “I Spy” oceanscape.
Below are the original concepts for the wall and ceiling designs for the room.
Phase 2: Chalking the concepts onto the walls and ceiling
After we finalized the concepts, we used a projector to shine the art on the walls, and then used chalk to trace over the outlines. This helps create a template of the original design for when we begin to paint.
We also utilized an extremely technically-advanced setup (read: a bucket) to prop the projector up, so that it could shine on the ceiling without bending the power cord.
Phase 3: Painting mayhem!
Once we finished chalking the designs onto the wall, it was time to break the colors out and begin painting. A lot of the early work involved blocking in the basic shapes and colors. Special thanks to the incredible individuals highlighted below - spanning high school, med school, residency, nursing, fellows/attendings, and hospital leadership - who stopped in at various times to lend a hand and bring this oceanscape to life!
Jayda Allen, Jawaher Azam, Emily Alvarez, Ximena Avila, Erin Barnett, Jason Castillo, Mark Chen, Lynn Chen, Peter Gu, John Hanna, Weijiao Huang, Sheryl Mathew, Lisa Matyiku, Elaine Nguyen, Elise Nguyen, Emily Nguyen, Karim Salhadar, Jillian Smartt, Vy Tran Plata.
Phase 4: Final small touches
After we got the basic color blocking, I went back to finish rendering the details and shading, as well as added in final touches! But one of my favorite parts of the wall was something I didn’t even paint. That honor goes to two pediatric burn unit patients, who visited the room when it was almost done. Seeing them jump around the room in delight at all the colors and fish and hidden easter eggs made all the shoulder cramps and long hours worth it. We painted their hands with brown paint, then let them stamp their handprints into the sand. Their touch will forever live on the walls of these rooms, where they had been cared for as patients.
And with that… we finished!
After 5 weeks, 175+ hours of painting, and over 150 sea creatures - we finally finished the room! Special thanks to the Parkland Hospital and Burn Unit leadership featured here, who were instrumental in making this project happen.