Forest Hills Artist To Spearhead Mural Project At Queens Hospital

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — A Forest Hills artist will create a community mural at Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica as part of an arts program by the city's public hospital system.

Forest Hills artist Yvonne Shortt will work with patients, hospital staff and locals to design a mural for the Queens hospital, NYC Health + Hospitals officials announced Thursday.

Shortt founded the Rego Park-based nonprofit RPGA Studio, which has worked on community beautification projects like the mural in the Yellowstone Boulevard underpass between Austin and Burns Streets.

Shortt's mural project is one of eight the hospital system is commissioning for its citywide "Arts in Medicine" program. Each mural will go up by the end of 2019.

Artists were chosen from among 100 applications, according to a spokesperson.

"Incorporating art in medicine encourages a whole person's approach to healing," First Lady Chirlane McCray said in a statement. "The community murals will produce, naturally, those surges of pleasure and distraction that reduce pain and frustration."

Project funding comes from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund through the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City.