Christine Brey’s artistic practice centers on highly detailed graphite drawings that combine technical precision with a quiet emotional charge. Her works often explore the inner tension between stillness and psychological movement, and she frequently works with recurring motifs related to water, memory and the fragile states between thought and action. Her drawings are lifelike and monochrome, marked by a sense of seriousness and timeless concentration. Brey has a deep interest in the element of water, which she uses as both a symbolic and compositional force within her drawings.
Brey studied visual arts in Würzburg and Hamburg, completing both her BA and MA with a focus on drawing. She studied with artists such as Marco Wagner, André Rösler, Anke Feuchtenberger and Gesa Lange, who influenced her interest in narrative drawing and the expressive potential of the line. In 2019 she undertook a formative artist residency in Morocco, where she also created participatory art projects with children in the desert region of Erfoud. This experience broadened the cultural and thematic scope of her work and strengthened her engagement with social contexts.
Her exhibition history includes presentations at MuseumsQuartier Vienna, SMAC Berlin, Kunsthalle Niendorf and Kunsthaus Hamburg, as well as numerous group shows across Germany and Europe. She has been active in drawing based initiatives such as the Inside Draftswomen collective, which she co founded in 2019. Brey is the recipient of multiple grants and awards, including the Bergkristall Award for best bachelor thesis and a series of cultural grants from Hamburg. Public collections such as the German Emigration Museum and the Martin von Wagner Museum have acquired her work. She continously develops her practice that is at once introspective and outward looking, shaping graphite into a language of clarity, delicacy and subtle emotional resonance.
