“In shorthand gone rogue, Hartman combines the Pitman language she acquired as a teen with her photographs and paintings to create images designed for oblique reflection. With a nod to steganography, she takes the utilitarian line out of it gendered subservient format to explore its potential for social or political commentary in 2018. Viewers are free to consider what is coded, obvious, ordered or imagined in their own lives.”
Ruth Hartman