Unveiled in early 2024, Shara Hughes’s first project with RxART spans the 407-foot central corridor and elevator bay of Phoenix Children’s Hospital. This extensive installation covers previously nondescript walls in the artist’s recognizable, vibrant colors and imaginative, nature-inspired imagery. From emergency department and helipad arrivals to inpatient and ambulatory transfers, this walkway is the first point of entry for nearly all patients as they are admitted or routed to their care areas. Titled Wonder and Wander, the installation was a direct response to a request that was made five years earlier during a patient advisory council meeting. At that time, one of the council’s young members asked the hospital to “make that hallway less scary.” 

With the patient’s request in mind, Hughes worked on the original drawings while she was at home in New York, and also while she traveled, taking inspiration from different landscapes. To create the original drawings, Hughes used materials children can relate to: markers, crayon, colored pencils, and watercolors. Her priority was to create an installation that would feel like a safe, positive, and hopeful space where children can reflect as well as find a moment of respite. To achieve this, the small-scale artworks were later enlarged and transposed onto Acrovyn, a medically approved, durable, and long-term wall material. 

This project was made possible with generous support of the Molly Blank Fund of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Ruth Stanton Foundation, and the Rallis Foundation with additional support from Dawn and David Lenhardt, the Opatrny Family Foundation, Gould Art Advisory, David Kordansky, Pilar Corrias, and Meredith and Charlie von Arentschildt.