When artist Elizabeth McIntosh accepted this commission for West Park Healthcare Centre, she was tasked with transforming one of the facility’s most stressful places: the south entrance, where many inpatients arrive for the first time, often with feelings ranging from anxiety to hope. McIntosh’s multi-wall installation draws inspiration from French domestic wallpaper as a means of infusing the space with a sense of home. 

The artist’s design, titled Inside Out, maintains this theme of domesticity and is abstracted in the manner of Henri Matise, as traditionally precise and ornate decorative elements are rendered loosely in form, scale, and pattern. Atop the wallpaper design are a series of colourful landscapes and figurative drawings—a cat dozes peacefully in one—that suggest windows and spaces beyond this interior corridor. For McIntosh, creating a sense of viewing the outdoors from within the medical setting brings the comforts and joys of home to an otherwise unadorned healthcare environment.