Gallery Installed at Eskenazi Health

I'm super excited to have been commissioned by Eskenazi Health to create a gallery of infant photography for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The purpose of the collection is to inspire happiness and hope in the parents of the babies staying in the hospital.

This gallery, I call “Miracles,” and it includes a series of babies actually born at Eskenazi Health and other Indianapolis hospitals. The focus of each photograph is to emphasize the beauty and simplicity of a new child that is a miracle. When a child is born, she is the center of her very small world where nothing else matters. This body of work conveys that simplicity of being. The photos emphasize the beauty of the physical body, and the amazement of some physical features, like the tiny size of their feet or more abstract details like the relationship between the parent and baby.

These are my artistic intentions for this project, and I’m proud to have this gallery on view in a healing environment.

We know that art can help us feel better — even our innate preference for a soothing painting or sunny park over a dark alley has a scientific basis. A 2011 University of London study found that blood flow increased 10 percent to the "joy response" part of the brain when subjects saw a beautiful painting — just like when you look at a loved one. The findings give credence to what we've always suspected, Faerstein said: that visual art has a strong, positive physiological effect on the brain. http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/healing-power-art-can-hospital-collections-help-n208966

I love Eskenazi Health’s progressive philosophies based on research, and they have won many prestigious awards for it. “Medical, psychological and neurological research have focused attention on understanding the full scope of the healing properties of art, and the positive correlation is clear and compelling,” said Dr. Lisa E. Harris, chief executive officer of Eskenazi Health. “The new Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health campus features art and garden spaces that are intended to enrich the lives of patients, visitors, staff and the community.” - eskenazihealth.edu

I am truly honored to be a part of it.