Jenny Helen Hartt is a Philadelphia-based artist who also maintains a Design Thinking and health innovation consultancy. She has experienced grief-filled loss and some intense medical journeys along the way. Haven’t so many of us? If the site’s logo looks like a woman entering a MRI machine, not just one in a magic act, that would track. After years away from illustration art, for work in life sciences and health innovation seed investment leadership, she returned to art as a painter at the start of 2023. Jenny now consciously recognizes art-making needs to be part of the conversation of where technology and humans are heading next. The arts are as important as the sciences and help us sort out our values and our vision.
This site, JennyHartt.com launched for 2026 while Jenny sat with questions like: “Will robots be like consumers or animals in the new world order?”“Will they have money to speculate and buy art and music?” “What does solitude in our political, technological and social moments look like?”
The art on the site is organized by CURRENT PROJECTS and then PRACTICE THREADS, below, and by THEMES, above, in the header navigation bar. Art students might find the practice threads sections useful.
“Take a suggestion” someone said to Jenny when she got sober many years ago. A BIG GOAL of this site, which is itself an art project, is THE SUGGESTION BOX that follows. There is a paper book version at Open Studio visits, too! If you would like me to know about YOUR work, please make that the suggestion!
The last thing she would like you to know before you peruse the site is: She hopes to never grow comfortable with referring to herself in the 3rd person.
Current Projects:
‘They Know Not What They Do’ (2026)
What is this project about? I visually express human vulnerability and the crowding out of grief and connection in the built and technological world. I have done this with, in past work, depicting the unsettling presence of phones or contrasting those unsettling pieces with other pieces depicting warm, comfortable quiet places of reflection or play without technology. In this current series, a bear stands in for human development, attachment, play and grief, juxtaposed against the visually uncaring built world designed to service the humans. The bear is approximately up at the height of military drones which have some of their own source of light on the bear. This is meant to depict something or someone in proximity, out of view, with the bear. There is surveillance by the viewer, not just looking. The bear is kind of a collective alter ego for some of our more human moments. - Jenny
Some places with original works on display: Summer of 2026 shows at Box Spring Gallery, Ice Box Gallery and Penn Medicine's 2026-2027 'Celebration of Art & Life' Exhibit
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Some places with original works on display: Summer of 2026 shows at Box Spring Gallery, Ice Box Gallery and Penn Medicine's 2026-2027 'Celebration of Art & Life' Exhibit 〰️
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Figurative & Portraiture
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Drawing and Texture
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Color and Drawing
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Design and Color
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Drawing and Places
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Oil Media
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Aqueous Media
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Abstracting
^ PRACTICE THREAD: Collage Ideation
