Connecting Patients with Nature: Creating Watercolor Botanical Paintings with a Sense of Place for Barnes-Jewish Hospital with Erin Blumer

About this event

“In early 2024, Erin accepted a major commission for Barnes Jewish Hospital to create paintings that would accent patient rooms in the new 16-story Plaza West Tower. The design concept for the new hospital, “”A Journey Through Neighboring Gardens”” would center biophilic design, local flora–and local artists’ work.

The resulting body of work encompasses 34 paintings for the BJC commission, plus an additional 12 that Erin created specifically for the show at Heartland. The entire process spanned nearly three years.

In this gallery talk, Erin will discuss biophilic design and how nature and art improve healing for patients and the hospital experience for everyone. She will also cover her process and what she learned in the course of the commission.

This gallery talk will cover much of the same material that was covered in Erin’s gallery talk at Grafica earlier in the year. If you missed that talk, this is your opportunity to hear her discuss this body of work!”

About Erin

Erin’s artwork invites viewers to appreciate and more closely examine their relationship with nature. She is especially interested in plants and our relationships with them, which she explores through her art and her garden. Plants sustain us physically and emotionally through the food we eat, the flowers we gift to celebrate joy or convey sympathies, and myriad other ways. The land that produces it all also receives it back, cycling matter through a breathtaking array of forms and functions.

Erin prefers a representational approach to make a concrete connection between the viewer and the subject. Simultaneously, she leverages the unique properties of watercolor to bring expressive and emotive qualities to her paintings. Navigating this relationship between realism and abstraction contributes to her artistic voice.

Photography is a crucial part of Erin’s process, allowing her to rapidly explore different perspectives, light, and compositions. In the studio, she reviews her photographs from the field, looking for those that “ask” to be painted. These are images where rendering in paint completes the artwork that the photograph began. Occasionally, she works from others’ photographs—always with permission and with the goal of bringing something new to the image.

Erin lives with her husband, three cats, and ever-expanding garden in St. Louis, Missouri. Her award-winning work is in private collections and has also appeared in local and national exhibitions. She is a Signature Member of the St. Louis Watercolor Society and a Founding Member and past Communications Chair of Heartland Art Club.

www.erinblumer.com

From Heartland Art Club