• Biography

    Maria Brunner (born 1962 in Lienz, Austria; lives and works in Berlin) is a contemporary artist best known for her hyperrealistic paintings. In her works, she stages found and digitally modified cut-outs, everyday objects, and draperies into enigmatic arrangements that she first photographs and then translates into painting. Through dramatic light-and-shadow contrasts, special pigments, and a precise, almost photographic technique, Brunner creates an atmosphere that oscillates between intimacy, theatricality, and abstraction. Her works have been exhibited internationally and are regarded today as an important position in contemporary Austrian painting.

     

    In October 2025, Maria Brunner's solo presentation KATHEDRaLe took place at La Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière as part of OFFSCREEN Paris. Brunner has held institutional solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Offenburg, Kunst Forum Rottweil and Kunstverein Heilbronn, among others. She participated in group exhibitions at Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, and Museum der Moderne, Salzburg. The artist has been represented by Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, since 1992.

     

    Maria Brunner’s works are included in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Sammlung Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt, and Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck.

  • Maria Brunner, Mon Amourchen, 2025

    Maria Brunner

    Mon Amourchen, 2025
    Oil on canvas
    120 x 100 cm
    47.2 x 39.4 inches
  • Maria Brunner, 17 DROPS A DAY, 2025

    Maria Brunner

    17 DROPS A DAY, 2025
    Oil on canvas
    230 x 195 cm
    90.6 x 76.8 inches
  • Installation view: Maria Brunner, KATHEDRaLe (2020), OFFSCREEN, Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris, 2025
  • Works
  • Installation view: Maria Brunner, Acqua Felice, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2025
  • Exhibitions
  • External Exhibitions
  • Installation view: Maria Brunner, I'm glad, I'm not me, Forum Kunst Rottweil, 2010
  • Publications
  • Request more information