Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt’s vibrant and playful paintings explore the iconography of contemporary society, depicting subjects from everyday objects to nostalgic characters in popular culture. Born in 1975 in Clayton, Missouri, Bernhardt studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before earning her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2000.

Bernhardt appropriates pop-culture imagery, translating her subjects onto her canvas with an abstract explosion of colour. Even before her graduation from her MFA degree, the artist’s star began to rise, with early works portraying mundane objects and popular iconography such as the character E.T. and the McDonald’s golden arches. She also painted fashion models, tropical fruits, cigarettes, laptops, sneakers, cartoon characters like the Pink Panther and Garfield. This combination of high and low cultural references has become a signature of her work.

The artist’s process involves laying down her canvases on the studio floor, allowing her to work from all angles, and applying paint in broad, expressive strokes. Bernhardt’s paintings are marked by their spontaneity and energy, often appearing chaotic yet harmonious. Her use of colour is especially striking. She employs a vibrant palette that adds a sense of dynamism and immediacy to her work. ‘I guess that’s my aesthetic,’ Bernhardt said, ‘raw, stained, messy, using-your-hand-in-it art.’

Bernhardt’s works have received international acclaim, with notable solo exhibitions including Katherine Bernhardt: Watermelon World (2018) at the Mario Testino Museum in Lima, Peru and FOCUS: Katherine Bernhardt (2017) at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. Her works belong in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Rubell Colelction in Miami, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and more.