LONDON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Mexican-born artist Aliza Nisenbaum has captured striking images of front-line medics in Liverpool at work as they fight COVID-19.

The specially commissioned works completed by the New York-based painter have gone on display at Tate Liverpool, an art gallery and museum in the city, and will be exhibited until June 27, though currently the gallery is closed because of the coronavirus lockdown.

Nisenbaum, a painter best known for her bright, large-scale portraits of community groups, captured the faces and stories of National Health Service (NHS) staff in Liverpool, the first city in Britain to introduce mass testing for the virus.

Her works centered on the city's Alder Hey Children's Hospital, one of the biggest of its kind in Britain.

Staff who sat for oil paintings or water colors by the artist included doctors, hospital porters and student nurses.

Nisenbaum worked with these sitters remotely, painting from life via video chat, even though the pandemic has prevented her from travelling to Britain.

Selected through an open call, the people depicted in these new works represent a broad range of care workers, including doctors, nurses, porters, researchers and healthcare assistants.

Influenced by the Mexican mural movement and its depiction of social history, Nisenbaum creates colorful paintings that often focus on community groups.

"Nisenbaum has worked in response to the current global health crisis, focusing her attention on NHS staff from the Merseyside region whose work has proven vital during the COVID-19 pandemic," a spokesperson at the Tate said, adding that this exhibition features two newly commissioned group portraits and 11 individual watercolor paintings.

"Nisenbaum's new paintings capture the stories of frontline NHS workers and highlight the impact that COVID-19 has had on their work and home lives. They are shown alongside things that have given them support and hope through this difficult time, such as pets or musical instruments," the spokesperson said.

The exhibition was held as Britain will start to beef up border control on Monday by changing in travel rules for the country, with all travel corridors closing, meaning arrivals from every country will have to quarantine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the changes at Downing Street on Friday, saying they would "protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains" of coronavirus.

England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines. Enditem

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