Royal College of Surgeons' of England

Art pieces featured as part of an exhibition.

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Client: Royal College of Surgeons’ of England
Medium: Watercolour and Digital
Categories: Public Display

Anatomy of an Athlete Exhibition (London Olympics 2012)

The Hunterian Museum, at the Royal College of Surgeons’ London was looking to create an art exhibition involving anatomy and sport to run in conjunction with the London Olympics 2012. Needing to find anatomy artists to create artwork for the exhibition they approached The Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain.

The planned ‘Anatomy of an Athlete Exhibition’ was to be held in the Hunterian Museum and was to be open to the public. The overall theme for contributing artists was ‘exploration of the anatomy and physiology of elite athletics using different media and sporting disciplines, on subjects such as the role played by sports regarding exercise, medicine or surgery’. Joanna Culley as a professional member of the MAA was one of four artists chosen to create original artworks for this exhibition.

Joanna chose to demonstrate the ‘benefits of exercise’ to show the anatomical changes in response to exercise. Using Hockey as the theme the next stage was to see players in action. Permission was granted to watch the Hockey Team GB at one of their training sessions in preparation for the Olympic squad and we were even able to choose a player who we could use in our illustrations.

We found Hockey an excellent choice to study as it was relevant to three factors involving the benefits of exercise. This was muscle strength, cardio and mobility. It was obvious when watching the team play, that strong shoulder muscles were key to a hockey players’ ability. Holding the stick, needing strength and speed to maneuver the ball, to hit the ball and to have the flexibility to bend, rotate, swerve.

Cardiovascular was another illustration choice as sprinting over 90 minutes during a match, means your heart must be used to extreme exertion. To reach this level of fitness requires a level of fitness that is achieved through years of training and cardio work.

And lastly the knee, where exercise helps build strong supporting muscle and ligaments, that in the long term will help sustain the knee even into old age. The knee is a joint that benefits from continued movement, stretching, and exercise.

The exhibition proved to be a great success. Thanks to the Hunterian team and Team GB Hockey Squad and Coaching staff for their assistance in this project. In particular, thanks to APOS Therapy the sponsor and to Courtney Kipps the Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, University College, London.

Clients Comments……

“We found medical-artist.com to be energetic, imaginative, and efficient, a joy to work with!”

Dr. Sam Alberti | Director of Museums and Archives Royal College of Surgeons of England, London

“Joanna has a great eye for detail and the illustrations were loved by everyone, most especially by the client.”Stuart Banks, Digital Project Manager, Frontera
“Joanna was right at home working with us to develop illustrations that both met our clinical needs and fit perfectly into the aesthetics of our user interface. Her work is superb!”Michael Gold , Director of Product Development, CareCloud
“We have now received the new folder with your illustrations: I love it!”Lisa Ruckstuhl - Product Manager Osteoporosis, Daiichi Sankyo (Schweiz) AG
“I’m really pleased with how the book finally looks and that is in part huge thanks to Jo for such fantastic and skilled art. The level of detail that Jo achieves is incredible and her medical knowledge clearly abounds. She is always such a pleasure to work with – nothing is too big or small a job. It was all approached with the same cheery manner! Jo always delivered on deadlines too, which is a huge relief to us designers! Many thanks – it has indeed been a pleasure. I would have no hesitation to recommend Jo!”Senior Designer, Duncan Baird Publishers
“Joanna and her team are a pleasure to work with. They are responsive and creative. They turned around several excellent animations and drawings for our video series. We certainly would enjoy working with them again!”David Mathison, MD, MBA, Associate Director of Pediatric Transport, Children's National Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics & Emergency Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine
“Joanna has provided the core illustrations for a number of our iPad Apps, and her illustrations have received terrific reviews from our users. She understands our requirements clearly and also understands the specifics of illustrating for digital media and mobile applications. The quality of her work is outstanding, and she can be relied upon to hit deadlines and deliver to the exact clinical requirements of each project.”Todd Morgan, Co-Founder, drawMD
“Hello Tim and Joanna,
Thank you for the illustrations, you have done an outstanding job on the finished articles… The service provided was efficient and very thorough, we were very happy with the way you able to understand and translate the brief into an illustration which captured the desired output.”Clare Lynex, Senior Medical Writer, UBM Media Asia, Singapore
“We found medical-artist.com to be energetic, imaginative, and efficient, a joy to work with!”Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Museums and Archives, Royal College of Surgeons of England, London