Art is here
to bring you joy.
Scan a painting. Unlock the story behind it.
Made for everyone, wherever a moment of connection matters most.
How it works
Share stories, in three steps.
Simple, guided, and designed to create meaningful emotional connection through creativity.
Art on the wall
A Jonathan’s work lives in a hospital corridor, a clinic, a waiting room, wherever joy is needed.
Scan with the app
Open Active Art, point your phone, and the painting is recognized through augmented reality.
The story unlocks
A short artist-led video plays. Save it and Share the moment that made you feel something.
“The bad news room
became the good news room.”
- Mass General Hospital
Origin Story
A fishing box of pencils.
A waiting room.
A father. A husband. A family.
When Jonathan's father was diagnosed with late-stage cancer at 53, Jonathan — twenty-one years old — began drawing in hospital waiting rooms to stay positive. Fish tanks. Red Sox hats. Hearts. Small drawings on napkins and scraps of paper.
Those drawings made a Yankees fan laugh. The nurses taped them to the walls. His father would say: “Jay-Z, just stay positive. ”Four months later, his father passed. The art never stopped. Today, 30 to 40 of Jonathan's paintings live on the walls of Massachusetts General Hospital. A Bruins mural in paediatric oncology.
This is where Active Art began.
The active part is about participation. It is connective. It reaches into layers within a person emotionally and socially, and it also connects people to the wider world. There is a strong but often overlooked thread that connects us all, and Active Art helps people feel that.
It crosses language, socioeconomic background, and geography. It is like striking a note that resonates across people and experiences. Art has always been a way humans communicate, from primitive drawings on walls to how we still communicate now. Active Art helps restore that connection and reminds people they are not disconnected.
Susan was in those hospital waiting rooms too, sitting beside Michael, watching Jonathan sketch on scraps of paper and napkins, watching strangers smile at a Red Sox hat drawn in pencil.
When Michael died four months after his diagnosis, Susan and her sons faced a choice. “We realized we could be bitter or we could be better,” she says. “My family, my boys and I chose the better path.”
That choice became the foundation of everything Active Art stands for.