What it had to solve
Nurses spend countless hours caring for others but that commitment is hard to see; GE HealthCare wanted to thank nurses for Nurses Week in a way that made the volume of their work tangible.
The idea
A portrait artist's brushstrokes were counted by an infrared frame on the canvas, so each painting carries as many strokes as its nurse's hours of care
How it works
BBDO NY partnered with contemporary realist painter Tim Okamura. A custom infrared frame mounted to his canvas tracked his brushstrokes in real time, so the strokes reflected the hours four GE HealthCare nurses have given. Each portrait was intentionally left incomplete and joined the GE HealthCare Gallery of Care.
What it did
No campaign metrics were reported. The unfinished Canvases of Care entered the GE HealthCare Gallery of Care to live on permanently, and served as a launch expression of the 'Care that can' platform.
Background
For National Nurses Week 2023, GE HealthCare and BBDO NY launched 'Canvases of Care', turning nurses' working hours into brushstrokes on canvas. The company framed it as one way of actioning its new platform, 'Care that can', which shines a light on the human side of health tech.
BBDO partnered with Tim Okamura, a Japanese Canadian artist in New York known for contemporary realist portraits. A custom infrared frame mounted to his canvas kept track of his brushstrokes in real time, ensuring they reflected the significance of the many hours each of four nurses has selflessly given.
The paintings were deliberately left incomplete — because a nurse's work is never finished, neither are the portraits. BBDO creative directors Rob Concepcion and Jess Rello said the unfinished canvases visualise nurses' never-ending commitment in a way that feels tangible, and the works continue to live in the GE HealthCare Gallery of Care.
Why it lands
A painted portrait honours nurses without the stock-footage sentiment of most healthcare tributes.
The stroke-count mechanic gives the metaphor a real mechanism: the infrared frame ties marks on canvas to hours on shift.
Leaving the portraits unfinished turns a limitation into the message — the care continues, so the painting does too.
Attaching the work to the 'Care that can' platform gives the medtech brand a human-side anchor.
What you can take
Quantifying an invisible effort — counting brushstrokes the way you would count work hours — turns thanks into something tangible, and leaving the artwork unfinished says the job never ends.
Since then
The Canvases of Care continue to live within the GE HealthCare Gallery of Care. LBBOnline reported no performance figures for the campaign.
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