Spanning nearly five years of work by Hamilton-based photographer Joseph Hartman, The Artist’s Studio is an exhibition of large-format photographs of studio interiors shot around the country. These photos provide rare behind-the-scenes views into the production spaces of some of Canada’s most well-known contemporary artists, such as Pierre Dorian, Robert Davidson, Wanda Koop, Duane Linklater, Kent Monkman, Mary Pratt and John Scott, alongside more emerging practices.

The artist’s studio can be a sacred place, a vacuum, a social gathering site, a habitat of personal anguish or growth—sometimes all these things at once. It is an intimate space where an artist creates the objects that will publicly represent their practice—the factory where work is made and sometimes also the stage that presents it. For all its complex ingredients, the studio is essentially a portrait of the artist.

Joseph Hartman is a Canadian photographer based in Hamilton, Ontario. After receiving a Master’s degree in Kinesiology at McMasterUniversity in 2004 and being accepted into medical school, Hartman decided to pursue a career as an artist. He is a self-taught photographer and apprenticed with Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky before embarking on his own career in photography. He is the recipient of several awards and grants, including those from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Hartman’s work can be found in permanent public collections, including the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the MacLaren Art Centre; as well as prestigious corporate collections, such as Royal Bank of Canada and TD Canada Trust.