Katharina Ernst

Katharina Ernst

Austrian-malaysian artist Katharina Ernst, born in 1987 in Korneuburg and raised in Vienna, started playing the drums at age nine, with an early focus on polymetric, odd and chaotic structures. She studied abstract painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and simultaneously started touring worldwide with projects in the music and performance context. In her own work, she puts emphasis on transgressing the fields of music, fine arts and choreography, celebrating a hybrid notion of the term „composition“, and allows herself for various forms of expression and translation between artistic disciplines. She spent eight years living mainly in France before moving to Berlin.

Katharina received the START scholarship for Music and the State scholarship for Composition of the Austrian Federal Chancellary, and was supported several times by Deutscher Musikfonds. She was among the selected artists for the European platform SHAPE and received the H13 prize for Performance Art in 2024. In 2025, she founded her own record label, Extrametric Records.

She has collaborated with and received commissions from artists such as Florentina Holzinger, Christina Kubisch, Michael vz Mühlen and Kate McIntosh. Her performances, compositions and visual art have been presented in the context of Kunsten Festival des Arts/ Brussel, iMAL Festival/ Brussels, A l’Arme Festival/ Berlin, Wiener Festwochen, musikprotokoll, Mattatoio/ Rome, Jazz em Agosto/ Lissabon, HAU Berlin, Deutsches Theater/ Berlin, WUK, Cafe OTO/ London, Wiener Musikverein, Burgtheater/ Vienna, PACT Zollverein/ Essen, arselectronica, Theatre de la Ville/ Paris, Arsenale/ Venice, Museum of Modern Art/ Zagreb, cave12/ Genf, Ruhrtriennale, TQW, ZKM
 

DISCOGRAPHY

Katharina Ernst / EXTRAMETRIC II, Extrametric Records, 2025
Katharina Ernst / Polylog/acme, Extrametric Records, 2025
Katharina Ernst & Schne / KRANETUDE , Trost Records 2024
Katharina Ernst / le temps, Trost Records / Ventil Records, 2021
ALSO / Live in Celovec, Trost Records, 2020
Katharina Ernst / EXTRAMETRIC, Ventil Records, 2018
ALSO / Live at Wirr, Trost Records, 2016
VENTIL / VENTIL, Ventil Records, 2015