NINA HARTMANN

Background

Hartmann was born and raised in Miami, Florida, where she developed a creative sensibility shaped by South Florida’s vibrant subcultural music scene. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating with a BFA in 2013, before pursuing her MFA at Yale School of Art in 2023. She currently lives and works in Queens, New York.

Growing up surrounded by her mother’s traditional painting practice, Hartmann developed an early fascination with visual expression, though she deliberately rejected representational painting conventions. Instead, she cultivated a distinct methodology rooted in collage, archival research, and material experimentation. Her practice has been deeply influenced by punk, noise, and experimental music subcultures, where she first learned compositional thinking through designing flyers and album artwork for friends.

Nina Hartmann’s Artworks

Nina Hartmann’s multimedia works operate at the nexus of sculpture and painting, employing inkjet printing, resin, encaustic, wood, and acrylic to create what she describes as ‘sculptural paintings’. Her practice draws from curated archives—including declassified government documents, military technology publications, and conspiracy research materials—which she recontextualises through collage and visual transformation. Rather than pursuing literal representation, Hartmann treats her artistic process as algorithmic, absorbing information until reaching a point of ‘slight exhaustion’ before translating these collected materials into visual form.

Sacred Geometry and Diagrammatic Thought

Hartmann’s recent investigations centre on sacred geometry, particularly the five Platonic solids and their recurrence throughout art history and spiritual traditions. She draws inspiration from historical moments such as Michelangelo’s polyhedra at the Medici Chapel in Florence and medieval reliquaries. Her sculptural paintings translate these forms and symbols into abstract compositions that resist singular interpretation. Works such as Intelligence Tactics (Networked Diagram) (2024) employ encaustic medium combined with inkjet prints and pigment on wood, creating layered surfaces that suggest hidden systems and obscured knowledge.

Political Archives and Obscured Histories

Hartmann’s engagement with declassified Cold War archives, psychological warfare documentation, and alternative historical narratives reveals her interest in how information is mediated and controlled. She mines poorly reproduced or intentionally obscured imagery—culled from unclassified state documents and scientific literature—treating these fragments as modern icons. Through reappropriation and visual obfuscation, she explores what she terms ‘flickers in the matrix’, questioning the authority of official narratives and systems of belief.

Materiality and Visual Language

The artist employs deliberate material choices to create visual complexity. Encaustic painting, resin encapsulation, and Xerox collage function not merely as techniques but as philosophical positions, suggesting the layering, preservation, and distortion of meaning over time. This approach aligns with her broader practice of treating ambiguity as a generative tool, allowing viewers to project their own interpretations onto works that resist definitive readings.

Nina Hartmann’s Solo Exhibitions

• A Planet on a Pin, Voloshyn Gallery, Miami, Florida, 2025
• Experience Machine, Glasshouse Projects, London, United Kingdom, 2024
• Soft Power, Silke Lindner, New York, New York, 2023
• FOGBANK, Gern en Regalia, New York, New York, 2020
• Defanging Recovery Manual, In Lieu Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2019

Nina Hartmann’s Select Group Exhibitions

• 24th Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns, Gadigal Land, Sydney, Australia, 2024
• A Modern Disease–Like Jetlag, Cooper Brovenick, New York, New York, 2024
• The Fools Journey, Eighteen Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2024
• subliminal archipelagos, Clima Gallery, Milan, Italy, 2024
• The Boys Club (Redacted), Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, New York, 2024
• A Signal Urgent But Breaking—Yale MFA Show, Perrotin, New York, New York, 2023

Awards and Accolades

• PinchukArtCentre Prize, 2025
• Sandefjord Kunstforening Art Award, 2023

Gallery Representation

Nina Hartmann is represented by Silke Lindner, New York, and Glasshouse Projects, London. You can follow Nina Hartmann on Ocula to learn more about her work.

Website and Social Media

Nina Hartmann’s website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found @ninahartmann___.

More Reading

Nina Hartmann’s practice has been featured in leading publications, including Flash Art, Galerie Magazine, and Elephant. Her work was reviewed in the 24th Biennale of Sydney catalogue and has been the subject of curatorial essays in contemporary art criticism. You can follow Nina Hartmann on Ocula to be updated when new articles and features are published.

Nina Hartmann FAQs

Ocula | 2026