The art of healing

Shannon Kincaid empowers women through her paintings, which line the walls of the fourth floor of the T. Boone Pickens

Cancer Hospital

Story by Brittany Nunn | Photos by Kim Ritzenthaler Leeso

The elevator door opens to the fourth floor of the Baylor T. Boone Pickens Cancer Hospital, and immediately visitors are greeted by three colorful images on the far wall of the waiting area.

Throughout the women’s cancer unit, 22 paintings by nationally and internationally known Lakewood artist Shannon Kincaid line the walls like an art exhibit, speaking messages of hope and empowerment to the thousands of women who walk by.

“[The paintings] are all about women,” Kincaid explains. “There’s a significant body of my work that has to do with just women — sort of the sacred feminist is my aesthetic that I’m interested in.

“This is a gynecologic oncology unit, so all of the people on the unit are women, and they’re women with some kind of gyn cancer. The paintings are bright and filled with color, and women doing things that women do.”

Kincaid was originally commissioned by the hospital in 2000 to create 12 paintings for the gyn-oncology unit. Recently, she donated 10 more pieces to the unit.

Kincaid began working with Baylor hospital in 1992 after her mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. (Several years later, she was also diagnosed with breast cancer, and, thankfully, is a survivor of both.)

“She had been given such tremendous care at Baylor. They were so loving and took such great care of her that I wanted to give back. I was so thankful that I offered a year of my time, artistically, to the hospital in whatever form or facet they needed. It was just my way of giving back.”

After the year, Baylor Hospital took her on as the commissioned artist for the hospital, and she’s done many more projects with them since.

“[Being diagnosed with cancer] is just the most terrifying position to be in — even vicariously,” Kincaid explains. “I can’t imagine the journey of someone who’s actually walking it, how that feels.”

Many of the paintings in the women’s cancer unit are very simple. In vivid colors, they capture women going about life, such as three generations of women walking along the beach, or a woman standing in the wind holding her hat in place. Some of the pictures are more abstract and emotional, depicting women in various states of being contemplative, anguished, insecure, confident — in obscure locations.