Jai Hart’s paintings simultaneously define and defy borders. Her smartly playful works range from precious and pillowy abstract landscapes to larger-than-life hybrids that mix stretched canvases with soft sculptures. Bands of stuffed and painted material partially frame the work, and then take detours. These soft conduits depart from traditional geometry to capture adjoining sections of the wall, floor, and ceiling as integral elements of her compositions. Hart paints layers with vibrant tints of colors in varying opacities. She overlaps and combines fields of broad gestural strokes with controlled, mesh-like straight lines and murmurations of dots that weave in, out, and between. Many of her works are energetic and dazzling, but she also offers counterpoints with restrained palettes and dreamy, atmospheric areas. The Wall Wanted to Play Too: The Architecture of Tenderness is Hart’s first solo exhibition in Rhode Island.

About Jai Hart

Jai Hart is an American artist who lives and works in Boston (Concord), MA. Jai holds an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York; a B.F.A. from Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO; and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

In 2025, Jai participated in several exhibitions, including a solo show Loose Ends at the Burlington Micro Gallery, MA, as well as two-person shows titled How to Let Go of the World: A Duet with Kelly Worman at Freight and Volume Gallery in Tribeca, NYC, and Chalky Wrinkle Shape and Shine with Timothy Kadish at The Essex Art Center, MA.

Her 2025 group exhibitions include SUBWAY RIDERS at Spring Projects, Dumbo, NY; So It Goes at The Wassaic Project’s Summer Exhibition, NY; Immortal Threads at The Phoenix Gallery, Waterbury, VT; and Pastoral: Refuge and Redemption at ReadyMade Gallery, Orleans, MA. Hart’s other recent exhibits include In Nature’s Grasp at The Brattleboro Art Museum, VT; Stuffed at Boston University Stone Art Gallery; and Slant Rhyme at Brandeis University’s Kniznick Gallery.

Hart was a nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Grant and has received artist grants, fellowships, and stipends from organizations including the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Oregon Arts Commission, The New York Foundation for the Arts, Skowhegan, The Vermont Studio Center, and The St. Botolph Club Foundation, MA.