Biography | Negra Bernhard

Born in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, on January 11th in 1986, Negra Bernhard migrated to Austria with her family in 1992 due to the Bosnian War. She obtained Austrian citizenship in 1999.

From 2017 to 2022, Bernhard studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under the mentorship of Prof. Daniel Richter, ultimately earning her diploma with distinction.

Since 2023, she has been represented by Smolka Contemporary in Vienna. Since 2024, also by SAV Gallery in Los Angeles and MLZ Art Dep in Trieste.

Bernhard’s work is held in several private collections in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium and the United States. She lives and works in Baden near Vienna.

Awards & Residencies

Artist Residency 2024 | SAV Gallery, Los Angeles
Emerging Artist Programme 2022 | Contemporary Art Collectors, Barcelona
Shortlist Bank Austria Kunstpreis 2019 | Galerie3, Klagenfurt

Selected Solo & Duo Exhibitions

2025 Wild Is The Wind | Smolka Contemporary, Vienna
2024 Light, Space & Delirium with Casper Brindle | SAV Gallery, Los Angeles
2023 Radiant Green | Smolka Contemporary, Vienna
2022 Kindergarden | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
2021 Open Studio Days | Vienna Art Week
2020 Let Them Eat Paint | Wienstation, Vienna
2019 Bebi Dol & Mustafa | Verein Fortuna, Vienna

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024
Winter Show | Smolka Contemporary, Vienna
Hundezone | Funkhaus, Vienna
Summer Show | Smolka Contemporary, Vienna

2022
Konferencija | Semperdepot, Vienna
Promesse du bonheur #2 | MLZ Art Dep + WAF, Trieste
Rundgang | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

2019
Prospektive | Semperdepot, Vienna
Upcoming Artists – Vol 1 | Bachmair Weissach, Tegernsee
Schwärmen | Galerie3, Klagenfurt
Rundgang | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

2017-2018
Rundgang | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Geld | Academy of Fine Arts Munich
I don’t know why | Volkskundemuseum, Vienna

Art Fairs

Fair For Art Vienna 2025 | Smolka Contemporary
Parallel Vienna 2025 & 2019-2023
Art Verona 2024 | MLZ Art Dep
Spark Art Fair Vienna 2024 | Smolka Contemporary
Art Vienna 2023 | Smolka Contemporary

Auctions

Female* Art Auction 2021-2023 | ArtCare, Vienna
Best of ArtCare 2021-2023 | ArtCare, Vienna
Young Art Auction 2021 & 2020 | ArtCare, Vienna

Press & Publications

2024
Sissi mit Schlangenzunge | Monopol Magazin, Berlin
Negra Bernhard: Exhibition Preview by SAV Gallery | West Hollywood Design District, Los Angeles
Spark Art Fair Vienna Presents an Array of International Artists and Galleries | Munchies Art Club, Vienna

2023
Radiant Green | Exhibition Catalogue, Smolka Contemporary, Vienna

2022
House of Losing Control | Exhibition Catalogue, Vienna Art Week, Vienna
DISCO blank Issue 3 | Blank Publication, Vienna
Negra Bernhard | Contemporary Art Collectors, Barcelona
Interview with Negra Bernhard | Les Nouveaux Riches, Vienna
Promesse du bonheur #2 | ArtsLife, Milan

2021
Selected Works | Rundgang

2020
Stories Of Traumatic Pasts | Exhibition Catalogue, Hatje Cantz, Vienna
No Matter. What? | Exhibition Catalogue, Leeremptyblank, Vienna
Somewhere between Orient and Occident | Artitious, Berlin

2019
Neue Reihe im Bachmair Weissach: Künstler-Nachwuchs provoziert und rüttelt auf | Merkur, Munich
Prospekt | Exhibition Catalogue & Free Photographs, Edition Fünf Null Zwei, Dresden/Leipzig

2017
Geld | Exhibition Catalogue, Munich

Artist Statement

My engagement with painting as an inventory of what is going on in and around me, as well as in what is out there in the world, oscillates equally between sarcasm, insecurity and alienation towards the world in which we live. For me, painting is a penetration into another dimension of existence, into a space of its own, where I can mess with, but also cut the world, like the eternal shedding of a snake in the cycle of being.

The psychologically intellectual content can sometimes be interpreted as autobiographical, but in a broader sense it can be read as a mirror of a subjectively perceived state of the world and often also deals with political topics besides childhood memories, personal life experience and dreams. What interests me is the interplay and interconnectedness of all these aspects. My work is primarily about reflecting the hallucinatory tension between these internal and external states of being in order to distort perception and create psychedelic visions that evoke the dreamlike, often in the form of mystical, nocturnal dreamscapes populated by wolves, foxes, and jackals, animals that appear as symbolic figures of isolation, transformation, and yearning.

Basically, in the end the focus is on people and their sensitivities. Lonesome and longing to howl at the full moon with others. In the broadest sense, it is also about the brokenness of society and painting as one of the means in the fight against it, a form of coping mechanism that peaks in a disorienting, emotionally charged space with the aim to synthesize all elements into an introspective, otherworldly visual language that transcends reality.

My work tends to reflect the duality of the artist’s existence—belonging yet detached, engaged yet alienated, forever questioning their place in the world they depict.