January 16, 2024
Local artists have added a colourful new mural to the basement tunnel leading from St. Boniface Hospital to the McEwen Building, where mental health services are provided.
Artists Natalie Baird and Toby Gillies were hired by Artists in Healthcare Manitoba to paint the 300-foot-long mural, titled Outside Light, on the concrete tunnel wall in December of 2023. They designed and painted the mural in collaboration with other local artists. It took them about two weeks to complete.
St. Boniface Hospital Foundation donors helped fund the mural project, in part, through the Hospital’s Art at the Bedside program which promotes healing through the arts and creativity throughout the facility.
Other funding sources for the project and its collaborative approach included the Manitoba Arts Council, Artists in Healthcare Manitoba, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, and The Winnipeg Foundation.
Baird and Gillies enlisted other artists in Winnipeg to collaborate and design the painting in a workshop they held in September of 2023.
The mural uses abstract, organic shapes and bright colours to evoke the trees and foliage that grow in the riverfront forest behind the Hospital.
“We wanted to show the dappled light in the foliage along the Red River,” said Baird.
The artists joined the duo for a stroll on the river walkway last fall, to gain inspiration before they sketched out ideas for the mural.
“The mural brings a sense of lightness and colour to the basement tunnel,” said Baird.
“We heard positive feedback from passers-by as we were painting the wall. People commented on how it made the tunnel a nicer place to be,” she added.
“It’s amazing the difference some paint can make,” said one Hospital employee as if on cue as she walked past the mural.