Artist Bio

Michael Bartmann is drawn to non-designed, left-over places. He evokes emotion using spatial dimension, atmosphere, and defining architecture. Space is a living thing in these paintings; a tangible presence. Tension exists among the use of traditional one point perspective, the flat abstract two-dimensional canvas world, and the surface of the paint. Bartmann is interested in the journey through the space and paint layers rather than a particular fixed image. He enjoys the idea that the viewer is free to roam around, and wants the entire process to show through the final painting. The residue of the previous drawing and painting comes through in the final version.

In his current body of work, the defining and dissolving of forms and spaces indicate various states of abandonment and transition. 

He grew up in a small city, Reading, PA, which had a thriving manufacturing past and a substantial working class population and is now struggling to transition out of it’s rust belt past. He explores abandoned spaces and post-industrial cities in my paintings. His prior career was as a Landscape Architect, before studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The combination of designed, and non-designed environments influences his work as a painter.