Gout is a disease caused by too much uric acid. And it causes more than pain. It eats through bones and causes corrosive damage throughout the body. Uric acid damage is often overlooked by doctors, yet it catastrophically destroys patients’ bodies and lives.

It was time to take gout and uric acid out of the textbooks and put it directly in front of doctors where it could defy the expectations their training had ingrained in them.

With a budget of $500,000, our objective was to unnerve gout specialists and kidney doctors across the country by demonstrating the toxic effects of uric acid to change perceptions and alter treatment approaches.

To make gout relevant to rheumatologists and nephrologists, we contextualized its damage employing an unorthodox method. We depicted gout’s toxic nature using the very substance that causes it—uric acid.

We brought artists together with patients to portray the devastation of gout. Then, we did something never attempted before: We created uric acid mixtures based on the uric acid levels in each patient, and then we etched their portraits onto copper plates using the custom mixtures as reactants.

The uric acid was so corrosive, it disintegrated the copper. We inked and pressed the copper plates to create prints.

We invited doctors, key opinion leaders, and patients to see the prints and corroded plates in exhibitions across the country. The emotion captured in the prints combined with the destruction wreaked on the plates, shook their views on gout and brought them face to face with the toxic truth of uric acid.

Accounts of patient suffering are not enough to compel rheumatologists and nephrologists to change their approach to treating gout. We had to do more than index on the emotional; we had to demonstrate a scientific truth, one they had never thought of or seen.

That scientific truth? Uric acid, the substance that causes gout, is so corrosive it can eat through metal.

The artistic portraits created by eroding metal with uric acid help rheumatologists reconsider their approach to gout by validating patient suffering.

TOXIC PORTRAITS is a first-of-its-kind experiment that blends science and art to demonstrate gout’s corrosive damage using the very substance that causes it.

Working with 3 artists and 2 printmakers, we created custom uric acid mixtures based on the amount in our patients, to create etchings. The uric acid mixtures were so strong, they ate through the copper plates.

Three illustration styles were chosen because they intensified the emotional toll of the disease: line drawing showed the deep biting effect of uric acid on metal; splatter effect suggested the chaos caused by uric acid; and light-to-dark cross-hatching paralleled the darkening path traveled by patients with gout. The emotional pain is evident in every brush stroke.

Beyond 3 gallery exhibits, 1,000 prints and posters were sent to rheumatologists, nephrologists, and key opinion leaders across the country. Each illustrates 1 essential truth: the pure anguish and toxicity of gout.

TOXIC PORTRAITS gallery events targeted and impressed the most important audience of all: key gout specialists and kidney doctors across the country.

Their response was overwhelming. In every market, TOXIC PORTRAITS were requested and conversations about the work and the process led to requests for follow-up visits by sales representatives.

Seeing the artistic portrayals of gout suffering next to the corroded copper plates prompted these medical thought-leaders to reconsider the urgency they bring to treating their gout patients. In turn, these influencers will prompt doctors within their regions to do the same.