M.J. Hartwig is an artist, author, farmer and sometimes attorney, dividing his time between Montana, Arizona and Mexico. He spent some 18 years in the maritime industry, starting as a deckhand in the Alaskan king crab fishery and, working his way up through the hawsepipe, ultimately earned his master mariner's license. As a mariner, Hartwig drove fishing vessels, small freighters, tugs and salvage ships. These experiences, together with his deep and abiding enchantment with the sea, drove the underlying currents of Hartwig's foray into painting. As exemplified by his “Ship Wreck” series, Hartwig was initially drawn into his art by the dichotomy between the oft romanticized serenity of the sea and its ever latent violence.

Hartwig's paintings are further inspired by the sea changes, found not only on the water, but as well in the human condition and its ever shifting physical and societal paradigms and the effect these have on the nature of our existence. Coupled with this is the notion that nature is fluid; that the universe is incapable of maintaining a static condition. Humanity is also subject to this reality. Hence, so too are human artifices - physical, societal and psychological. Everything we create eventually succumbs to decay and transformation. Accordingly, Hartwig seeks to explore these notions in the work he produces. Moreover, and perhaps contrary to the conventions of painting, M.J. Hartwig creates his work with an eye to expressing ideas, rather than seeking a more marketable consistency in the tenor and style of his work. To a restless mind, the concept of constructing, and then playing, within the confines of a specific sandbox is constricting and, ultimately, stifling. And so, Hartwig paints and draws what, and how, he feels like creating at that particular instance in time.     

M.J. Hartwig is also drawn, on occasion, to the consequences of our evolution towards embracement of techno-totalitarianism and notions that any idea we might disagree with, regardless of merit, or a lack thereof, should be suppressed in favor of the views we hold. Hence, our brave new world, ever increasingly embodied by the New Inquisition, would have the Dark Ages pale by comparison. In Hartwig's view, art, as are the written word and the ability to think critically, is a vital means of resistance against all tyranny. This theme appears, from time to time, in the work he produces.

M.J. Hartwig is a self taught painter, a classical liberal and chain smoker. He is, thus, an anachronism. Hartwig eschews polite company as he is of the opinion that politics and religion are the only things worth talking about.