Philip Hurtig’s path to art began with a simple desire to draw. It wasn’t a grand ambition, just something that felt natural. Growing up in Silicon Valley, surrounded by technology and innovation, he was more interested in images than in circuits.

He studied painting and printmaking at San Jose State University, where he learned from Fletcher Benton and Kenneth Auvil. Later, his time in Monterey deepened his connection to photography, adding another dimension to his approach.

Hurtig’s work blends halftone textures with elements of magical realism and DADA, creating high-contrast compositions that exist between reality and illusion. His influences range from Dada and Surrealism to 15th and 16th-century Northern European relief printmaking. Artists like Giorgio de Chirico, Gustave Doré, Odilon Redon, and Francisco Goya have shaped his vision.

In addition to his visual art, Hurtig writes short fiction and poetry. His stories and poems, much like his paintings and prints, exist in a space where the familiar becomes strange, and reality is never quite stable. Through both words and images, he explores thought, identity, violence and survival. Hurtig invites the viewer / reader into worlds where meaning can distort and  collapse and perception is always shifting.