Spending time with art, even just a few moments, can boost your mood and support overall wellbeing.
Use this page to discover artworks and their stories featured in the common areas of the UF Health Heart & Vascular Hospital in Gainesville, FL.
Ancient Orange Grove I
by Mitch Kolbe
Ancient Orange Grove II
Mitch Kolbe is a contemporary artist who has worked as a commercial artist, graphics printer, muralist and sculptor, while pursuing his fine art painting. His strongest ties are to the pre-modernist painters who began portraying Florida more than a century ago. This approach is still one of the most powerful in conveying the distinctive qualities of the landscape.
Employee Art Program
by UF Health Employees
Employee photographic works are displayed in the cafeteria, consult rooms, and patient rooms in the UF Health Heart & Vascular Hospital.
Employees entered a juried competition for inclusion in the building, and the opportunity to contribute to the hospital interiors provided a unique sense of ownership and pride. By adding the employee’s name to each piece, we create a bridge of human connection of common experience between those receiving care and those caring for them.
Employee art is in included in every UF Health facility.
Florida Farmland
by Alfred Phillips
Swamp Sparrow
by Alfred Phillips
Acrylic on Canvas
Alfred Phillips is a Gainesville, Florida- based artist who specializes in acrylic painting. Educated at Louisville, Kentucky’s Art Center School, with a four-year studio arts degree, Phillips had a long, successful career in commercial art that included stints at ad agencies, then at his own graphics design firm. In 2003 he closed the firm and took up art full time when he relocated to Fort Lauderdale, earning multiple awards, and making sales on national and international levels. He relocated to Gainesville in 2013.
“Because I always paint realistically but never to the point of photorealism, I call my work ‘contemporary realism’, and it often has a narrative theme. I will sometimes incorporate almost abstract-like areas, with drips and splatters, and shapes and angles, even in my most detailed paintings. Then I might focus extreme detail in certain areas of the canvas to draw the eye and bring the viewer closer to the painting.” –Alfred Phillips
Florida Woodpecker Series
by Molly Kempson
Molly Kempson is a printmaker and art educator living in Baltimore, MD. She served as an artist in residence with UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine for eight years where she created several legacy projects with patients and families, including the Arts in Medicine-published coloring book, Wild Florida.
“I want my viewer to feel connected to place while they are in a clinical setting; something I think the overall design of the UF Health buildings does beautifully. I want to show our local patients and families familiar and comforting images, while helping our many patients from other parts of the world what Florida is like outside of the beaches and theme parks the state is known for.” –Molly Kempson
Footworks: Paintings by an Artist Living with ALS
Series by Sandra Murphy-Pak
Sandra’s work as an artist and educator spanned over 30 years, but her career took a pivotal turn during her tenure as an artist in residence with the UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine program. While engaged in this role, Sandra impacted patients and colleagues with her creative approach, leading projects and fostering creativity across the hospital community. Undeterred by the obstacles ALS presented, she developed her remarkable “Footwork” series in 2015, using her right foot as her sole creative tool. Through the beauty of community partnership and the love of friends and family Sandra was able to create until the last hour of her life.
Hers was a journey that reached new dimensions of achievement despite—and even because of—this profound challenge. Sandra’s courage, joy, and skill continue to inspire. Her journey, woven into her family’s artistic lineage and marked by shared resilience in the face of ALS, reflects a life lived with purpose and creative vibrance.
Persimmons Series
by Ann Gilroy
Persimmons I
Persimmons II
Anne Gilroy is a Gainesville-based studio artist, writer, and former curator for the Historic Thomas Center Galleries. She is recognized for her own oil paintings of landscape, portraits, and still-life, as well as her community work supporting the development and exhibition local talent.
Sanctuary of Wisdom
The Sanctuary of Wisdom is a dedicated, quiet space for reflection, prayer, and meditation It serves as a peaceful contemplative resource for patients, visitors, and staff. The interior is filled with images and quotes from thought leaders across the world like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rumi, and Mother Theresa. Visitors are invited to find stillness while observing the meditation table or sit quietly away from the hustle and bustle of our large medical complex.
Spring Waves Glasswork Series
by Sarah Hinds
Sarah Hinds is co-owner of Somewhere Glassworks, an Arts in Medicine practitioner, and a community arts facilitator. She has over twenty years of experience blowing, casting, and sculpting hot glass from her studio furnaces and kilns. Sarah creates functional hand-blown glass, sculpture and site-specific installation art filled with color and light.
As an arts facilitator, she makes art with hospital patients through the UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine Program, adults with disabilities at GROW HUB, and has made art with generations of children in the community.
West of Key West
by John Moran
Traveling the Sunshine State with his cameras, John Moran seeks his vision of natural Florida as it must have appeared to Ponce de León and other early strangers in paradise. Moran’s work celebrates the magic of a unique landscape born of water and blessed with beauty beyond measure.