MOCA Jacksonville proudly announces the new exhibition What Lifts You Up, in partnership with Art with a Heart in Healthcare. The exhibition is on view September 11, 2022 through January 8, 2023. The opening event will take place Sunday, September 11 at 2 p.m. What Lifts You Up features the work of 16 young artists who are patients at local hospitals.

For more than a decade, MOCA Jacksonville has partnered with Art with a Heart in Healthcare, a nonprofit organization that provides personalized art experiences to enhance the healing process for patients and families at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Nemours Children’s Specialty Clinic, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and Baptist Medical Center.

The teams at Art with a Heart in Healthcare and MOCA Jacksonville work together each year to develop a unique patient art exhibition based on a prompt or question that inspires imagination, artistry, and individual expression amongst young patients, who work under the guidance of an Artist-in-Residence.

Over the years, the program has developed different themes to encourage more than 100,000 patients to express themselves through art. They are empowered to gain technical art-making and creative skills, while learning to articulate their feelings, ideas, and experiences. The experience empowers patients to celebrate and explore the artistic process, while gaining self-confidence and self-awareness.

Special thanks to the Artists-in-Residence who made this year’s program possible: Dylan Bauer, Heidi Drost, Kianna Godoy, Amy Irizarry, Brooke McKinney, Lisa Miyares, Jill Olmo, Matt Richards, and Abigail Santos. This exhibition is sponsored by the Florida Blue. Additional support for this exhibition was made in part by the City of Jacksonville, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the University of North Florida.