Francisco Sierra (b. 1977, Santiago de Chile) emigrated to Switzerland in 1986. He spent his youth in Herisau and currently lives and works in the village of Cotterd in the Canton of Vaud. Sierra is a trained violinist and self-taught visual artist. He is also a member of the performance collective Jetpack Bellerive and, since 2018, an artistic associate at the ETH Zürich.
Sierra has had solo exhibitions at Galerie von Bartha (2021), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2013), Kunstmuseum Solothurn (2013/14), Aargauer Kunsthaus, Kunsthaus Langenthal, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen am Rhein (all 2009). Group exhibitions at the Baku Biennale in Azerbaijan, SALTS Birsfelden, Last Tango Zurich, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunsthaus Centre d'art Pasquart and MCBA Lausanne, among others. He has been awarded numerous prizes for his work, including the Kiefer-Hablitzel Prize, the Swiss Art Award, the Manor Art Prize St. Gallen and the studio scholarship of the Landis&Gyr Foundation. In 2011, he was a scholarship holder at the Zentrum Paul Klee Summer Academy curated by Pipilotti Rist. The artist's works are in numerous collections, including the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau; Kunstmuseum Bern; Kunsthaus Centre d'art Pasquart, Biel; Museum im Bellpark, Kriens; Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (D); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen or the Kunstmuseum Solothurn.
Curator: Stefanie Gschwend, Director Kunstmuseum / Kunsthalle Appenzell