Tenee’ Hart was recently invited to be the juror for Jacksonville University’s 2026 Annual Student Juried Exhibition. JU’s Annual Student Juried Exhibition is set to open on October 15th.
Juror Statement:
As I moved through the submissions, I kept returning to this idea of ‘heart’ – the place where we carry what we love, what we lose, what we fear, and what we refuse to let go.
Across these works, this idea revealed itself in many forms. Sometimes it was literal; more often, it existed beneath the surface – in a gesture, a material, a memory, a wound. I encountered joy and tenderness alongside grief, longing, anger, desire, and courage. What connected the work was not simply emotion, but the willingness to make something from it.
The exhibition moves through these experiences in color: yellow holds happiness, warmth, and possibility; blue carries grief, longing, and absence; red pulses with passion, rage, and courage. Yet the heart rarely experiences these emotions in isolation. Joy can ache. Grief is often proof that we have loved deeply. Rage can emerge from tenderness. Reminding us that courage is not defined by invulnerability, but by our capacity to endure, resist, and become more than what has tried to break us.
As a juror, I was drawn to the works that allowed these contradictions to remain unresolved. The strongest pieces did not ask me simply to look – they asked me to feel. They took risks. They revealed vulnerability. They trusted that something personal could become something shared.
There is a particular bravery in making art while you are still discovering your voice. To create is to place something of yourself into the world without knowing how it will be received. These students offered us that vulnerability generously, and it was an honor to witness these collective works of ‘heart’ as a juror.
