Christine Streuli Born 1975 in Bern, Switzerland

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Christine Streuli, a Berlin-based artist originally from Switzerland, captivates with her use of bright colors and complex layering, making her paintings oscillate between a conceptual approach and intuition, with intricate patterns and hints of figuration. There is no hierarchy in her paintings; arabesques and geometric structures exist within an autonomous yet interconnected system. Each painting is a singular entity, where every element carries its own presence, balancing tension and harmony in an orchestration of form, color, and movement.

 

Using techniques such as sprinkling, pouring, and spraying paint, as well as tools like rakes and stencils to manipulate the surface, Streuli pushes the physical limits of painting. Gesture, exertion, and expansion define her process, making painting a physical experience where time and stimuli come alive. 

In exhibitions, her works merge with expansive wall paintings, intensifying spatial experiences and extending the logic of her canvases into immersive environments. Streuli’s engagement with scale asserts presence, where individual elements attract or repel, revealing or obscuring meaning. Her works remain deeply attuned to world events and draw inspiration from life's themes and paradoxes. A single gesture may be magnified, fractured, or repeated, generating a dynamic field in which structure and fluidity collide. Her works demand active engagement and invite viewers to perceive contrasts, interruptions, and unexpected relationships between colors, density, and openness.

Recently, she has turned her attention to painting’s inherent forms—spatters, accumulations, and traces of velocity—examining the raw syntax of the medium. Her compositions integrate sweeping strokes, sprayed pigment, hard-edged surfaces, transparencies, gradients, and ruptures, all of which forge a meticulously calibrated equilibrium. For Streuli, painting is an event—energy continuously negotiated, held in tension, and made visible through color, movement, and presence.

From 1997 to 2001, Christine Streuli studied at the University of the Arts in Zurich and later at the Berlin University of the Arts. Shortly after completing her studies, she gained international recognition. In 2007, she was selected to present her work in the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, alongside Yves Netzhammer, and in 2014 she participated in the Sydney Biennale. Since 2008, she has lived and worked in Berlin, and in 2015, she was appointed professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she has been teaching ever since.

Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions, including at Kunstmuseum Thun in 2020, Berlinische Galerie in 2017, Museum Folkwang in Essen in the same year, Kunstmuseum Luzern, and Haus am Waldsee in Berlin in 2013. In 2008, she had a solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Aarau. She has also been featured in many group exhibitions, including at Kunstmuseum Winterthur in 2019, Helmhaus Zürich in 2009, and Centre PasquArt in Biel in 2010.

Throughout her career, she has received numerous grants and awards. From 2001 to 2002, she was a scholar at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. In 2003, she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Pro Helvetia Cultural Foundation in Cairo. Between 2004 and 2006, she won the Swiss Art Award three times. In 2005, she received the Kiefer Hablitzel Award and was nominated for the Dorothea von Stetten Art Award, which included an exhibition at Kunstmuseum Bonn. That same year, she was awarded a visual arts grant from the City of Zurich, which included a studio residency in San Francisco. From 2009 to 2010, she received a studio grant from the Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr in London. In 2017, she was honored with the Fred Thieler Painting Prize, which was accompanied by an exhibition at Berlinische Galerie. In 2020, she received the KUNSTPREIS of the BEWE Foundation.

Her works are part of numerous public collections, including the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Berlinische Galerie – State Museum for Modern Art, Photography, and Architecture, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, and the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf.