Kristina Benz

My work explores the fragility of silhouettes and the ways identity is shaped between individuality and the collective. I am interested in transitions between the self and the other, intimacy and separation, protection and permeability.

My works often emerge from in-between states: moments in which the private and the surrounding world meet, overlap and begin to shift into one another. Boundaries appear not as fixed lines, but as porous membranes — permeable, unstable and constantly renegotiated.

I translate these processes into grids, omissions, overlaps, accumulations and physical traces. Humor acts as a subtle strategy of displacement: it disrupts fixed meanings, loosens categories and creates space for new configurations.

2006 – 2012
Studies in Painting, State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart, Germany

Oct 2010 – Mar 2011
Erasmus Scholarship, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary (Prof. Orshi Drozdik, Prof. Allan Siegel)

1997 – 2000
State-certified Fashion and Communication Designer, Deutsche Meisterschule für Mode, Munich, Germany

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026
Der Weibliche Blick 2/026, Kunstverein Burgwedel-Isernhagen, Isernhagenhof, Isernhagen, Germany

HAAM #4 – Hamburg Artists Art Market, Kraftwerk Bille, Hamburg, Germany

altonale 2026 – Kunst im Schaufenster: Vor aller Augen, Schrägschnitt, Hamburg, Germany

2022
In den Ideen des März, 8. Salon e.V., Hamburg, Germany

2020
Objects of Speculation, automat artspace, Saarbrücken, Germany

2019
Geil on the River – Neue Hamburger Malerei, Galerie ONspace, Kiel, Germany

Die Russen kommen, kommst du auch mit?, Projektraum Galerie M, Berlin, Germany

2018
paper/work – Paper in Contemporary Art, Grindelallee 129, Hamburg, Germany

Mit transparenten Masken als Türme getarnt, HINTERCONTI, Hamburg, Germany

2016
E I N E A R T B R U E H free wifi, 8. Salon e.V., Hamburg, Germany

POMME DE TERRE, HFBK, Hamburg, Germany

2013
Cold Candy Crush Saga, HINTERCONTI, Hamburg, Germany

2011
Women are like flowers…, Studio 13, Budapest, Hungary

2010
Auftauchen, Kunstverein Hechingen, Hechingen, Germany

Solo Exhibitions

2015
Hyene Chevre Pigeon Mille Pattes – Hyäne Ziege Taube Tausendfüßler, POOL, Hamburg, Germany

2014
Kristina Zerr, Röhrenbunker, Kulturhaus Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany