Margit Maria Hartnagel studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, in the classes of Hollegha, Hikade, Graf and Prachensky, and at the University of Applied Arts, experimental design and spatial art with Brigitte Kowanz.

Margit Maria Hartnagel explores in her works the painterly two-dimensional as well as the three-dimensional pictorial space in the form of objects, performances and art on buildings.
For more than 20 years, she has subjected the pictorial space to a rigorous reduction in search of the essential. In the process, the conditions of painting are also examined and consciously chosen as image-constituting, not as a means to an end: "That which I allow myself to encounter a viewer with the power of a painting is the little that remains when everything is left out that leads somewhere."
Constantly seeking to refine and adapt the technical possibilities to her painterly needs, in 2012, when she returned to her home region, the Algäu, she found a very special technique: pigments bound in incense milk. She applies these, diluted with a lot of water, in glazing layers to form solidifying, condensing bodies of color.

Her work is represented in numerous collections, such as the Leopold Collection, Mumok and also Angerlehner.

Portrait Margit Maria Hartnagel Fotocredit © Alexandra Loock

"Arising Colors, 1-6-21" Fotocredit © Markus Rössle