Where science meets consciousness, and consciousness meets art

I paint what connects us — beneath the surface of the familiar. Flowers at the height of bloom, cats in sovereign action or repose, women absorbed in interior worlds, rural animals, primates, and the invisible bonds between beings. In each subject I find the same question: what remains true and irreducible in a moment, a being, a scene?

My practice lies at the intersection of science, consciousness, and radical inclusion. I believe that perception is plural — that reality reveals itself differently depending on who is looking, and that the most important discoveries happen when every kind of mind is included. That conviction drives my collaborative work with neurodivergent co-creators, my curation of community exhibitions, and every canvas I make.

To paint is to pay attention. To pay attention is to discover new worlds.

I am Christine Hartmann

I am a mixed media artist and physicist based in Red Bluff, California. After thirty years applying science to medicine and national security, I retired in 2025 to commit fully to my artistic practice — and to the belief that art, like science, is a way of paying close attention to the world.

I carry my own lived experience of PTSD and a high-autism-quotient mind. Around 2006 I started painting as a path of recovery, and discovered that making things profoundly transforms every dimension of human experience. That personal journey is inseparable from my practice: I investigate consciousness, connection, and radical inclusion — how diverse minds, neurodivergent and differently perceiving, shape our collective understanding of reality.

My current work centers on the Matrix of Consciousness series and a collaborative mixed media practice that integrates the creative contributions of neurodivergent co-creators into unified wholes, treating each person's visual language as aesthetically essential. Most recently I guest curated Art and Mind at the Shasta Arts Council Gallery — an exhibition anchored by five community partnerships spanning arts, health, and social services — and created Weave of Consciousness, a 7-panel immersive installation built from the work of several neurodivergent artists at Artistic Endeavors in Redding.

I serve on the Board of the Tehama County Arts Council and am a founding member of the Iron Canyon Artist Collective.

Ready to merge your familiar world with the infinite?

Let me know if you would like to work together to dream up a new painting or collaborate in any way to help the world move forward.