In 2025 CUH Arts worked with artist Monica Perez Vega to create an art scheme for the newly refurbished NCCU. The paintings and digitally collaged murals flowing through the NCCU are called 'Cycles of Nature'.
The artwork has been especially commissioned for the department. Artist Monica Perez Vega has created paintings inspired by our journey through the seasons. The works aim to connect the viewer back to the quiet grounding rhythms found in nature. Works span the corridors, family room, quiet room, staff room and offices. The artworks ensure that the different areas of the ward hold associations with different seasons. The spaces do not reference the seasons literally or by name. They are instead guided by the feeling of journeying through the year: Spring welcomes visitors at reception with a friendly reassurance, Summer wraps the staff room with warm encouragement and escape, Autumn settles in the family room as a hearth for gathering and connection, and Winter embraces the quiet room, offering calm reflection amid hopeful resiliencies.
Along the corridors are digitally collaged murals which combine flowers, fungi, seeds and leaves from each stage of nature’s cycle. The elements are in movement, blown by an unseen wind, on a background sky of shifting colour.
The moment you enter the unit, seeing those flowing leaves, you know it's a nice environment. It's a trauma unit, but the [artwork in the] corridor is just saying, you know, it's calm, it's okay, kind of reassuring in a way.
Eric Mendoza, Senior Charge Nurse
Gathering Place
In the family room, Monica has painted a view which seeks to capture the warmth of Autumn. It focuses on the natural moment of nesting, grounding and gathering community. The colour palette has rich Autumn hues, with many trees revealing the hidden pigments in their leaves which were previously covered by the dominant green of summer. This display is the start of the tree drawing its nutrients back into its roots for protection.
Trees often act as markers to time. As we can often feel lost between places, trees stand firm with rootedness. Even tree stumps, although an embodiment of a disruption, are also places where life thrives despite of it.
Monica Perez Vega
Holding Light
The beauty and resilience of nature through winter is quiet but determined. The tree branch that covers the sofa in the quiet room is of the Winter Cherry Tree (Autumnalis Rosea) which blossoms even during a time of hibernation. Some varieties bloom again in spring. The room also features a collection of paintings of the first flowers that grow at the end of the season- Hellebores, Snowdrops and Crocus.
… I was admitted in autumn and when I left there was blossom on the trees. I felt lost because I had no sense of the seasons passing, no connection to anything outside.
Former Patient
Follow The Breeze
At the reception, and sprinkled through the corridor, are painting of trees. Follow The Breeze is inspired by the fresh, reassuring welcome of Spring. Trees often tell a story of steady resilience, and their blooms are a sign of renewal.
So much of what we do in NCCU is harsh and scientific, and the artwork just takes the edges off that. It's very accessible and enjoyable to look at.
Dr Aoife Quinn (Specialty Lead for Neurosciences and Trauma ICM)
To The Valley
In the staff room, there is a collection of murals. These works were painted by Monica, but then digitised and converted into vinyl wallpaper. To emphasise the rest and recuperation that is required in the sole private space staff have, the painting is inspired by warm calm moments in summer. To The Valley is an invitation from the artist to relax in nature. The dream-like valley is full of life with mature trees and flowering grasses. A path leads out to the mountains and encourages you to let your mind wander, but also returns you back at the end of your break. The mural hopes to give an opportunity for visual escapism within this challenging place of work.
For me, skies feel both transient but also hold a certain presence in the moment. It is the wind that carries us, scattering seeds of renewal as we navigate all of life’s seasons.
Monica Perez Vega
Creative Consultation with Hannah Jane Walker
CUH Arts engages widely during the consultation process through creative engagement. This approach involves working with artists to hold creative conversations that use making and creating to help people build a picture of what they think about or would want from an artwork.
For NCCU we worked with artist Hannah Jane Walker to capture and record inputs from staff, patients and their families – exploring how they would want NCCU to feel, what is needed from an artwork. Hannah had in-depth sessions with former patients and staff, hearing stories and experiences, while exploring how we can create healing, humanising environments that feel personal and relevant to the communities who will use them in the years ahead.
Below are some key takeaway quotes that have guided the project, the patient and family areas require calm, soft humanisation. While the staff spaces require encouragement and escapism:
Natural Rhythms: “Patterns. Things that have a rhythm that starts to form and then changes, just like our recovery journeys have… I went in in autumn and when I came out there was blossom on the trees. I felt lost because I had no sense of the seasons passing, no connection to anything outside.” (former patient)
Calm Escapism: “peaceful, and hopeful. It can be hard, we all need a place of refuge here sometimes” (staff member)
Monica Perez Vega
Monica’s work explores ideas of uncertainty and adaptation and her imagined landscapes sit between nostalgia and unease. Originally from California, she has lived in Montreal, Amsterdam, London and Birmingham, UK. Her memories of home are warped by a changing landscape, and experiences of continually starting over have led to a practice which investigates cycles of change. Her interest in skies is about both transience and presence, as well as a wider concern for the environment. Trees on the other hand, are anthropomorphic figures which tell a story of steady resilience.
Monica paints in a range of media and her sculptures are assembled from found, gifted and reclaimed material, including former paintings. Release is integral to her practice as she embraces endings as beginnings. Interested in the potential between renewal or collapse, she relies on disruption as a search for hope amid precarity.