Kerstin Brätsch, a German-born painter known for vivid, playful abstract paintings and maximalist installations, is the winner of the 2027 Zurich Art Prize. The annual award comes with about $37,000 in prize money and about $123,000 toward production costs of a solo exhibition at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, the prize’s co-sponsor (along with Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.).
Brätsch was born in Hamburg, Germany, and studied art in New York and Berlin. She currently teaches painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. She has shown her work internationally for nearly two decades, most recently at museum exhibitions in Porto, Bonn, Oslo, Rome, and Munich.
She’s known for studied old-world artmaking techniques like stucco marmo, stained glass, and marbling, and has collaborated with craftsmen and artisans. For a 2022 ARTnews profile coinciding with her inclusion in that year’s Venice Biennale, Brätsch observed that “sometimes, to build an image, you need four hands, two belonging to an artisan and two to the artist.”
Brätsch’s site-specific installation Fossil Psychic Stone Mimicry, a series of four mosaic benches with plants growing through them, is currently on view on the roof of the Aspen Art Museum through March 2027. MIMIKRY, an installation in the rotunda of the Fridericianum in Kassel, transforms the museum’s café area with colorful, marbled wallpaper, window curtains, translucent room dividers, and sculptural tables; it opened in 2023 and will be on view through early 2027. And at Gropius Bau in Berlin there is BAUBAU, an immersive kids play space chock-full of Brätsch-designed wall coverings, building materials, crafts, and costumes.
The first Zurich Art Prize was awarded to Carsten Nicolai in 2007; recent winners include Rosa Barba (2026), Kapwani Kiwanga (2022), and Robin Rhode (2018). Brätsch’s show at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv will open in June 2027.
