About

Don Hartmann is a pop expressionist who surveys and subverts artistic narratives through his mise-en-scène paintings. His work aims to unearth feelings of curiosity, human vulnerability, or “purity in an alley”. He often draws on the human condition and ideas of the collective unconscious as a provocation to push the viewer into seeing more.

Hartmann rejects complete abstraction, instead he draws and paints recognizable subjects, deliberately using a raw style of rendering and a simple palette in order to convey simplicity in form. Most of the time he uses the human figure as a central subject in his paintings. In the past he worked solely off Polaroid photos that he made, creating either real or conjured scenarios.

Often uncomfortable in social situations, Hartmann creates cinematic reproductions that work opposite of the tradition moral code, and are intentionally exploitative, indulgent, difficult and unhappy.