The University of Alberta Hospital is celebrating its legacy in a perhaps unexpected field: art. McMullen Gallery’s current exhibit, “While We Wait and Heal,” marks the hospital gallery’s 40th anniversary, named after William McMullen, who first conceptualized an art gallery in the future hospital in the 70s, based on research pointing to art’s positive impact on patients. The pieces on display were selected by donors, staff and friends of the University Hospital Foundation’s Arts in Health program and are accompanied by a statement about the piece’s significance to the person who chose it. Recalling an artwork that she used to visit frequently as a patient, former Team Canada gymnast and member of the exhibition selection committee Pamela Kriangkum told CTV News Edmonton, “Someone had put together a piece that said, ‘Love yourself intensely, immensely, indefinitely,’ and for some reason that really stuck with me. “That actually carried me for about 10 years. I made it into posters. I made it the background of my phone.” Another patient, Dana, said, “I love it. It’s very beautiful…. I enjoy coming and looking at the art.” ‘Sets the tone of the hospital’ “While We Wait and Heal,” consisting of pieces that have been acquired by the hospital over four decades, are meant to show the breadth and variety of the hospital’s collection, which has more than doubled from the 1,000 pieces it numbered in 1986. Among the works on display are a Peter Schiff painting that used to hang in a pedway to the Kaye Edmonton Clinic, as well as a painting from Coun. Aaron Paquette’s “Mother Earth Gives Us Blessings” series. “The art is so much more than just beautification. It can be a distraction for people. It can be wayfinding. It can be a place to look and focus on when you’re receiving difficult news,” said Tyler Sherard, the University Hospital Foundation’s associate director of arts and health. “You still see people in the hallways stopping to look at the art. A lot of people do their wayfinding in this hospital by the art on the walls, not by the signs in the floor or the overhead signs,” added gamma knife neurosurgeon Dr. Kein Aronyk. “They look not so much up and down, but at the walls, in this hospital – unlike other hospitals.” Aronyk started practicing in 1985, the year of transition from the old hospital to the new hospital. His first impression of the new hospital was warm and friendly, designed not only for patients but visitors and staff. “Hospitals tend to be strong on science and not so strong on the arts, and yet, quality of life is a large part of the arts,” he told CTV News Edmonton. “The name ‘gamma knife’ is intimidating, and the double locked doors and the radiation signs on the outside – it’s all intimidating. Until you open the doors and walk in,” he added of the artwork displayed in his own unit. “It sets the tone of the hospital and that unit.” According to the hospital’s art curator, Ellen Cunningham, the research into art on the experience of hospital patients originated with Roger Ulrich in the 1980s. Ulrich found that patients’ length of stay was shortened when they had a window to look at nature. That led to researchers questioning what other improvements could be made in a hospital environment. “Research as recently as 2025 has shown that art in hospitals, patients respond to it so positively that it can shorten their stay in hospitals, it can lower blood pressure, and it can lower their cortisol levels,” Cunningham said. Hospital leader in country At the time of its opening, McMullen Gallery was the first of its kind in Canada, according to the hospital. In the 1970s, as the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre was being planned, William McMullen was the vice chairman of the University of Alberta Hospital board and chairman of the Alberta Art Foundation. He died in 1979 at the age of 47, never seeing Ulrich’s published research confirm his own beliefs, nor his vision of a gallery in the new hospital realized and the change it would invoke in Canada. “We’re really the leaders in the field in Canada for art in hospitals, and lots of other hospitals are doing the same work,” Cunningham said. “It’s really wonderful to celebrate that we were, in 1986, really starting out among pioneers of this field in Canada.” “As We Wait and Heal” will remain open until Sunday. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Noah Rishaug
