Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1975. She took a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 and an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2000, and works today between New York and St. Louis. Her early paintings were portraits of fashion models, made fast and loose from magazine pages; the subject was less the women than the speed and disposability of the images they arrived in.

Since around 2014 the work has settled into what she calls pattern paintings: large canvases of spray paint and acrylic in which a single motif, or a small set of them, repeats across the surface with no hierarchy and no perspective. Cigarettes, watermelons, toilet paper, sharks, hamburgers, computer cables, Pink Panther, E.T., basketballs, coffee cups, bananas. The objects are painted at speed in thin, bleeding acrylic that pools and runs, and the compositions are built by accumulation rather than arrangement — an object lands, then another, until the canvas fills.

The choice of motif is deliberately indefensible, which is the point. Bernhardt has described looking for the dumbest thing she could paint, and the paintings hold their nerve on that question: they refuse to supply a reading in which the toilet paper stands for something. What they offer instead is the texture of a consumer culture experienced as pure surface — brands and cartoons and snack foods with the meaning drained out and only the colour left. The humour is real and it is not a defence mechanism.

Her handling has stayed loose on purpose. Paint is allowed to drip, pool, dry unevenly and bleed at the edges; she has said she is more interested in what the water does than in what she can do. That surrender of control connects the work to a long line of American painting even as its subject matter refuses one. Travel feeds it too — extended periods in Morocco and Puerto Rico have entered the paintings as rugs, palms, plantains and light.

Bernhardt has had solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2017 and the Museo Mario Testino in Lima in 2018, and more recently at the Hangaram Art Museum at the Seoul Arts Center and the Gangneung Art Museum in South Korea. She shows with David Zwirner in London and Los Angeles, and has made permanent installations including a sixty-foot mural for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Her work is held in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, the Rubell Museum and the San Antonio Museum of Art.

ARTIST CV

Born 1975, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Education and Training

2000 MFA, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA

1998 BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Summer Intensive Program, New York University, New York, NY, USA

International School of Art, Umbria, Italy

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026 Peanut Butter and Jelly, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2025 Sidewalk Chalk, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2024 Capsule x Basic.Space: Memphis Milano x Katherine Bernhardt, Miami Design District, Miami, FL, USA

2023 Dummy doll jealous eyes ditto pikachu beefy mimikyu rough play Galarian rapid dash libra horn HP 270 Vmax full art, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, China

2023 “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?”, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2022 Why is a mushroom growing in my shower?, David Zwirner, London, United Kingdom

2021 Ahí donde no has llegado sabes que yo te llevaré, Diablo Rosso, Panama City, Panama

2021 Hamburger Bacon Black Olive and Mushroom with Salted Caramel Pretzel Concrete and Hi Fi Fo Fum, Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO, USA

2021 Katherine Bernhardt: Special Online Exhibition, NANZUKA, Tokyo, Japan

2020 Done With Xanax, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2020 MayoKetchup, Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2019 Big in Japan, NANZUKA, Tokyo, Japan

2019 Garfield on Scotch Tape, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium

2018 GREEN, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2017 Concrete Jungle Jungle Love, Lever House Art Collection, New York, NY, USA

2017 Swatches, Karma, Amagansett, New York, NY, USA

2016 Product Recall: New Pattern Paintings, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium

2015 Fruit Salad, Venus Over Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2015 Pablo and Efrain, Venus Over Manhattan, New York, NY, USA

2015 Strawberry Banana Power Smoothie, Carl Freedman Gallery, London, United Kingdom

2014 Doritos and Diet Coke, China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2014 Stupid, Crazy, Ridiculous, Funny Patterns, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2013 Watermelon, Smiley Faces, Ice Cream, Popsicles, Avocado and Sun, Roberto Paradise, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2012 Nomad, Loyal Gallery, Malmö, Sweden

2011 Rites of Spring Passage, Carbon 12, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

2010 Hot Pop Time Machine, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

2010 Lila Dit Ça, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France

2010 Tombouctou 52 Jours, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2009 Super Models and Swatch Watches, Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid, Spain

2009 Wonder Women, Carbon 12, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

2008 Greeky, Ransom, London, United Kingdom

2008 Kate, Giselle, Natalia, Agyness, Simon, Kanye and George, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2007 Drunken Hot Girls, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France

2007 Kiss Me Kate, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden

2006 10:15pm, Galerie Lisa Ruyter, Vienna, Austria

2006 Flesh for Fantasy, Patricia Low Contemporary, Gstaad, Switzerland

2006 Girls on Film, Cannes, France

2006 La Dolce Vita, Galleria Glance, Turin, Italy

2006 Winter Special Crazy Fun, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France

2005 96 Degrees in the Shade, CANADA, New York, NY, USA

2005 Where the Spirits Dwell, Galería Comercial, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2005 Women of the Forest, Greener Pastures Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2004 Pleasure and Paint, Galerie Lisa Ruyter, Vienna, Austria

2003 Dots, Team Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2003 Kenny Schachter ConTEMPorary, New York, NY, USA

2001 Modern Culture, The Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY, USA

2001 Team Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2000 Team Gallery, New York, NY, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013 Holiday Services, Katherine Bernhardt and Youssef Jdia, The Hole, New York, NY, USA

Museum and Institutional Exhibitions

2026 Models, Musicians, Morocco, Magic, Mauve, Monsters and Magenta, Seongnam Art Center, Seongnam, South Korea (solo, forthcoming)

2026 Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz, Austria (solo, forthcoming)

2025 A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS, USA

2025 Inside the Studio: Katherine Bernhardt’s Universe, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea (solo)

2025 Some of All My Work, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea (solo)

2020 We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA

2019 GOLD, Art Omi, Ghent, New York, NY, USA (solo)

2018 Watermelon World, Mario Testino Museum (MATE), Lima, Peru (solo)

2017 Animal Farm, The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT, USA

2017 FOCUS: Katherine Bernhardt, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, USA (solo)

2016 NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, USA

2015 NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Museum, Miami, FL, USA

2002 Bad Touch, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL, USA

Biennials, Triennials and Art Fairs

2025 Unlimited, Art Basel Miami Beach, UBS Lounge, Miami, FL, USA

Selected Public Commissions and Projects

2026 Spring Cleaning, High Line, New York, NY, USA

2017 XXL Superflat Pancake, Project Wall, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

2015 Permanent installation, Club Caribe, Cidra, Puerto Rico

2015 Pool painting, The Nautilus, Miami Beach, USA

2007 Black White Silver Gold Baby, Installation with CHANEL and New York Magazine, New York, NY, USA

Selected Public and Institutional Collections

The Brant Foundation, New York, NY, USA

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, USA

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, USA

Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN, USA

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, USA

Rubell Museum, Miami, FL, USA

San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, USA