NIH recently partnered with the Smithsonian to bring unique minerals related to medicine to the Clinical Center. Check out the link below to learn more!
“Healing” Objets d’art Shine in Minerals in Medicine
Fun Fact: Zinc is a metal used throughout our bodies in many ways, including immune function, brain activity, and growth and development. It can reduce the impact of age related macular degeneration.
Untitled, 1991; Gold Triangle, 1991; Setting Sun, 1990; One of Three, 1989, acrylic on canvas
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art career began when Abstract Expressionism was recognized as the new American Art. Exhibitions at New York galleries made a lasting impression— to make a visual conceptual statement. Over the years, I have traveled to understand how artists perceive life in their time and have seen original art collections in historical context in Europe, England, Scandinavia, Mexico, Central America, and at regional US art centers. I have considered how my art-making would be influenced by masters of perception.
My art direction is to make artifacts from imagination and recall. I focus on completion and the way through it. To begin with, the draughtsman-painter works on a two-dimensional surface. The artist envisions an imaginative experience through which personality dictates how a composition is completed. For example, although three representative artists may be in the same viewing position to render a landscape or figurative subject, the completed art works are different. The difference can be style— photo-likeness, impressionism, or abstraction. A critic may note differences in the artist’s temperament, an alliance with social issues, or a challenge to the avant-garde of the time—the art of the new.
There can be no objective conclusion, except that all art making is subjective. Ultimately, distinctions are based on individual creations as a “body of work”—foreground-background, perspective, modeling, outlined shapes, light and color tonal gradations and the path of the viewer’s eye over a two-dimensional surface.
My artwork is original. I do not copy or draw from human figures or landscapes. I make a series of abstract line drawings within a square or rectangle ratio. When I like some of the drawings, I select one and “scale-up” the line drawing by projecting it onto a stretched canvas of the same ratio, secured to an easel. Then the work begins. My intention is to solve a problem. I have no specific idea when I will decide that the art work is completed. It is an intuitive process. Sometimes it will take a long time to make decisions. That is why I generally make more than one painting at a time (with different image compositions). In this way, I like to think I am creating original artifacts in the spirit of my time.
ARTIST BACKGROUND
Jack Martinelli received his MFA from George Washington University and has shown his work nationally and internationally since 1956. Mr. Martinelli has artwork in the public collections of George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, DC; The National Museum of Catholic Art and History, New York, NY; and The Marvin S. Schapiro Collection, Baltimore, MD. During his career, Mr. Martinelli has collaborated with the Arlington Arts Center and the Greater Reston Arts Center.
Permanent Art Collection of the NIH Clinical Center, for more information contact the Office of Space and Facility Management, 301 496-2862.
The Clinical Center’s Fine Arts Program has collected and displayed art since 1984. A self-guided walking brochure has been created to allow patients, staff and visitors to easily locate and learn about works of art throughout the building.
With this brochure in hand, a person can navigate to the 130 numbered locations of art across six floors of the Hatfield building.
The mission of the Fine Arts Program is to pair art with medicine to promote healing in an aesthetically pleasing environment for patients, caregivers and employees. The Clinical Center art collection has more than 2,000 pieces of art including photography, sculptures, paintings, collages, watercolors, textiles, folk art and glass. The works explore imagery from abstract to representational. The collection is made possible in part through donations from artists, patients, staff and visitors.
While some artwork remains permanently on display in the building, there are six galleries which change every eight weeks, often exhibiting local artists. Each piece is available for purchase and 20 percent of the sales from the changing art exhibits benefit the Clinical Center Patient Emergency Fund. Since 1989, these galleries have raised over $75,000 to help patients in need.
Copies of the self-guided walking tour brochure can be found at the hospitality desk near the north entrance, reception desk near the P1 garage, patient library on the 7th floor, The Children’s Inn at NIH and The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH. For more information, please contact Lillian Fitzgerald: 301.496.2862, vog.hin.ccnull@dlaregztifl. Read more: http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/participate/patientinfo/services.shtml#other
The leading role NIH played and still does in the arts for healing generates many donations. FFA established procedures for artistic donations – how to submit, guidelines for acceptance, donor responsibilities. These procedures have been adopted by other government agencies and private facility
FFA transferred images to wall coverings for installation in extreme bio-hazard and mental health units where patients remain for extended periods of time and have special needs. FFA provided art that relaxed and soothed the bleakness of these units while maintaining a sterile, secure and safe environment.
As you walk down nearly every hallway of the Clinical Center’s Hatfield building, you can admire artwork in the form of landscapes, photography, sculptures and much more. To help patients, their families and staff view the nearly 130 pieces of artwork on display, the Clinical Center Fine Arts Program now offers personalized tours of the artwork. To schedule a tour, call 301-435-5576.
The guided tour is provided by Louisa Howard, a NIH post baccalaureate intramural research training awardee who is a volunteer in the Fine Arts Program. The program, which began in 1984, has more than 2,000 pieces in its collection and is made possible in part through monetary and artwork donations from artists, staff, visitors and patients.
Also available is a self-guided walking tour. A brochure of the artwork on display is available at the north entrance hospitality desk, the reception desk near the P1 garage and the patient library on the 7th floor of the Clinical Center in addition to The Children’s Inn at NIH and the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge.
Article courtesy of Clinical Center News, August 2015 Issue.
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