Originally, the Ovartaci murals were situated in one or more basements under the restored part of the hospital.
In the 1940s Ovartaci offered to decorate the entire hospital. Ovartaci was admitted to this hospital for 56 years from 1929 until his death in 1985, 91 years of age. He found the environment in the hospital dull and unstimulating. In his opinion, the whole hospital needed artistic decoration.
The response from the hospital administration was, as may be expected, negative. Ovartaci, however, to some extent took the matter into his own hands and, illegally, decorated several basement rooms with exciting and talented paintings. These paintings were, however, covered, probably in the 1950s. In the 1980s
It succeeded Johannes Nielsen to find one of the basement rooms with these murals, assisted by the cleaning staff. Kindly supervised by the chief conservationist in Den Gamle By (The Old Town), Lars Vester Jacobsen and assisted by 3 volunteers, we gradually uncovered and restored these murals.
The Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus would have been famous for its’ murals, had they only let Ovartaci decorate more rooms in the hospital. The murals were “drawn” off the wall and restored by conservationist Lars Vester Jacobsen, due to a major restoring of the buildings.
Ovartaci fortalte, at hele udsmykningen i kælderrummet var udtryk for vejen til frihed, der, efter Ovartaci's mening, først og fremmest går gennem kvinden, kvindens psyke, og dragen. Dragen var, for Ovartaci, som f.eks. også for kineserne, et symbol på noget meget positivt. For Ovartaci var dragen først og fremmest et symbol på personlig frihed, værdighed og livskvalitet. Ovartaci told that all the pictures in the basement expressed the road to freedom, which, according to Ovartaci, first and foremost goes through Woman, the feminine mind and the dragon. The dragon represented something very positive for Ovartaci, as well as for i.e. the Chinese. The dragon primarily symbolized personal freedom, dignity and quality of life.
Creatively, Ovartaci doesn’t stop here. His vision unfolds itself on the walls of his sick-room, in his idea of the transforming the whole hospital – perhaps a whole world. Ovartaci’s wild plans of decorating his world had an afterlife through a greater attention and understanding of the inspiring effect of art, an effect on the mentally ill as well as the staff that shares the common surroundings with them. In Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus the decoration by artists, mentally ill as well as sane is taken seriously and given its’ proper space.
Today you find the murals in the entrance of the restored part of the hospital, where they were inaugurated December 26th. 2002.