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# An Artist Is Painting a 20,000-Square-Foot Mural for Healthcare Workers at the Queens Museum
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/queens-museum-healthcare-mural-covid-19/
- Published: 2020-05-29T19:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:52:11.000Z
- Description: Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada’s massive painting of a masked medical professional, “Somos La Luz” (“We Are the Light”), will be visible to satellites.
- Author: Sarah Rose Sharp
- Tags: News, COVID-19, New York, Queens, Queens Museum, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:41 (2019, 2020, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/05/sll1.jpg)

An aerial view of the “Somos La Luz” mural in progress in the Queens Museum parking lot. (All images by Eduardo Amorim and courtesy Greenpoint Innovations)

As the COVID-19 virus death toll eclipses 100,000 in the United States — a huge portion of the approximately 350,000 deaths worldwide — tributes in [various forms](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/24/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-100000.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) proliferate. The [Queens Museum](https://queensmuseum.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com), in partnership with immigrant healthcare network [SOMOS Community Care](https://somoscommunitycare.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and advocacy organization [Make the Road New York](https://maketheroadny.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com), among others, is preparing a huge mural dedicated to one of the hardest hit areas in New York City. A 20,000-square-foot mural by artist [Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada](https://gerada-art.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is in the process of being laid out across the canvas of the Queens Museum parking lot. The resulting image, that of a masked medical professional, will be at a scale that makes it visible to satellites.

Titled “Somos La Luz” (“We Are the Light”), the portrait features the eyes of [Dr. Ydelfonso Decoo](https://abc7ny.com/queens-mural-covid-art-memorial-in-flushing-meadows/6216122/?ref=hyperallergic.com), a physician and the secretary of SOMOS, who died of the virus.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/05/gerada-art-169.jpg)

The mural works from a masked photograph of Dr. Decoo.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/05/gerada-art-166.jpg)

Though the image is based on Dr. Decoo, it also commemorates the many healthcare workers who have risked or lost lives in the fight against coronavirus.

Rodríguez-Gerada is a Cuban-American artist who works primarily at large-scale portraiture situated in urban environments — or “[urban land art](https://gerada-art.com/works-projects/urban-land-art/?ref=hyperallergic.com)” — according to his website.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/05/gerada-art-90.jpg)

Rodríguez-Gerada and an assistant working on layout of the massive mural.

It was important to all involved parties that the masked hero evoke the Latinx community, which has been [disproportionately](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/us/coronavirus-latinos-disparity.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) [affected](https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/health/latino-impact-covid-19/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) by [coronavirus exposure](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/latinos-coronavirus/2020/05/25/6b5c882a-946e-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5%5Fstory.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) and fatality.

But the work likewise stands in recognition of the healthcare workers who continue to risk their lives in the fight against the as-yet unpreventable virus that has taken the country like wildfire. Even as individual states and countries negotiate the terms of “re-opening” — with no meaningful changes in the conditions that sparked the stay-at-home orders that have prevented even worse public health outcomes — one suspects that even a 20,000-square-foot reminder of the stakes might not be enough to discourage Americans from risking their health, and others’. Still, it seems that Rodríguez-Gerada is determined that his work create a space of hope and healing.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/05/gerada-art-81.jpg)

Rodríguez-Gerada at work on the mural.

“I wanted to create a place to mourn, where we can contemplate the difficulties that so many people are going through, after losing so many loved ones,” Rodríguez-Gerada told [artnet News](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/queens-museum-parking-lot-mural-health-care-workers-1872540?ref=hyperallergic.com). “It’s a place that, in a political climate where there is more division than ever, we can find a way to bring ourselves back together as a community and as a nation.”

Other partners in the project, which was commissioned by SOMOS and Make the Road New York, include [Greenpoint Innovations](http://www.greenpointinnovations.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [El Museo del Barrio](https://www.elmuseo.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com).