(b. Breisgau, Germany, 1961)

Berlin-based artist Katharina Grosse is known for her brightly colored acrylic paintings and installations. Often using an industrial air brush, layers of paint, or mounds of pigmented dirt, Grosse directly paints onto architecture, interiors, landscapes, canvases, sculpted Styrofoam, and fiberglass shapes. Taking inspiration from art historical references such as frescoes, plein-air painting, Abstract Expressionism, and urban graffiti, the artist expands the confines of traditional art historical categories such as two-dimensional painting, giving vibrant hues palpable form that become inseparable from the surfaces they cover.

Over the past twenty years, Katharina Grosse has exhibited widely, presenting numerous solo and group exhibitions, as well as in situ paintings and installations. Solo exhibitions include: Baltimore Museum of Art (2020); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019); National Gallery, Prague (2019); South London Gallery (2017); MoMA PS1, Fort Tilden, Queens, NY (2016); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); and Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. Texas (2013). Among the honors she has received are the Oskar Schlemmer Prize (2014); Fred-Thieler-Preis (2003); Stipendiaten der Stiftung Kunstfonds (1995); Schmidt-Rottluff-Stipendium (1993); and the Villa-Romana-Stipendium, Florence (1992). She has held professorships at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin (2000–2009) and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2010–2018).

Grosse lives and works in Berlin, Germany.