The Pop Reboot: Katherine Bernhardt’s Wild Icons
Katherine Bernhardt is an American contemporary artist who has expanded the boundaries of modern painting with brash colors and manic brushwork. Often featuring pop icons and everyday items, her work evokes both painterly tradition and the funky energy of street art. MorningCalm sat down with Bernhardt, an artist sought after by museums and collectors alike with her daring and distinctive visual language.
Why Painting Still Matters in the Digital Age
Since Katherine Bernhardt made her dramatic debut in the New York art scene in the early 2000s, she has established herself as one of today’s most talked-about painters. Well-known pop culture icons and household items — the Pink Panther, Pikachu, the Simpsons, Swatch watches and Doritos, for example — are reimagined on her canvases in strange and new ways, represented in bold colors, spontaneous brushstrokes and exaggerated compositions. Her paintings have all the freedom of children’s doodles, yet they still encompass incisive observations about pop culture and instinctive insights into our modern consumerist culture.
She first attracted attention in 2000 with her supermodel-inspired art pieces, and Bernhardt has since expanded her uniquely candid yet lyrical visual language by actively incorporating elements of contemporary pop culture into the classical medium of painting. Her immense trust in the power of painting allows her to express anything freely, unconstrained by the rules of perspective, proportion or logic. While her work has no didactic message, its playful synesthesia and spontaneous physicality may serve as one answer to why painting still matters in our digital age.
Bernhardt’s most recent masterstroke was her high-profile collaboration with contemporary fashion designer Jeremy Scott. Their joint exhibition A Match Made in Heaven at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas, explored themes of pop excess, humor and brashness, each through their preferred media of canvas and couture. Bernhardt’s exuberant brushwork and Scott’s flamboyant designs have the affinity of two languages from the same era, serving up a fascinating glimpse into how pop culture is being reinterpreted in today’s art.
If Andy Warhol mirrored consumer culture through his silkscreens and repeated imagery, Bernhardt’s paintbrush provides an unfiltered take of today’s icons. Where Warhol approached pop with cool detachment, Bernhardt charges ahead, boldly and playfully, through the slow yet steady medium of painting. If Pop Art was a revolution for the mid-20th century, Bernhardt offers a reboot in the syntax and sensibility of the 21st century. Bernhardt has said that the act of lifting a paintbrush in this era is both ridiculous and glamorous. The glamor of that act is what gives her paintings their undeniable power.
인터뷰
Your works frequently incorporate images from popular culture — supermarket products, cartoon characters, graphic patterns. How do you choose the objects that appear in your paintings?
I pick what’s around me — what I’m seeing every day, what’s entering my brain whether I want it to or not. Cheetos, Pink Panther, Windex, bananas. If something catches my eye or if I see something that may be funny for a painting, I use it.
It’s well known that travel is a source of inspiration for you. How does traveling influence your work, and which city left the strongest impression on you?
Traveling gives me tons of new things to look at and think about, seeing things done in different ways, seeing different artwork, meeting new people, thinking new thoughts.
It is always a huge source of inspiration. Some of my favorite places include Rio de Janeiro; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Mykonos; Marrakesh; New York; Mexico City and Capri.
Your use of color is striking. What do you consider most important when choosing your palette?
The colors are usually based on the color of the actual object that I’m painting. It starts with the actual colors of what things are in reality. I also use contrasting colors in the background. Or sometimes I will try to make a monochrome painting. It depends on what I’m doing.
There’s a sense of freedom and impulsive energy in your paintings. Do you have a specific emotion or rhythm while working?
When I’m working my main emotions are joy, happiness, excitement and a sense of empowerment. It can also be linked to peace, tranquility and relief. My feelings can also be complex and linked to anxiety and a sense of responsibility. Painting allows me to pursue my desires, express myself authentically and experience a sense of lightness and contentment. My ability to make choices, take risks and shape my life can be exhilarating and empowering. Freed from external pressures or internal conflicts, I can find a sense of calm and inner peace.
The freedom to make choices can also be accompanied by anxiety about the potential consequences or the weight of responsibility of making a good painting.
Your art seems to embody both seriousness and playfulness. Do you believe art must carry a message, or can sensory impact alone be meaningful?
I think just making people feel something is a message in itself. I don’t need to explain every banana or Bart Simpson. The world is already full of lectures. I want my paintings to hit you in the gut or make you laugh or confuse you. That reaction — that’s the meaning.
You recently exhibited with fashion designer Jeremy Scott. How did your creative worlds come together, and what kind of exchange or stimulation did you receive from the collaboration?
Jeremy and I both love kitsch, chaos and color. There’s a shared language in our work — fast, pop, fun, sometimes ridiculous. JoAnne Northrup, the curator, was the genius behind the show. She brought us together. I didn’t really know Jeremy’s work before this collaboration. We discovered that coincidentally, we have a lot of subject matter in common. We are also both from Missouri, and we are the same age. My paintings and his fashion complement each other.
In today’s world, what do you think is the role of art? And within that, what role does your own work play?
Art is a survival tool. With all the madness in the world, we need spaces where chaos makes sense — or where nothing has to make sense. My work brings color, energy and a little absurdity. It offers a respite from daily life.
In an era oversaturated with images, what meaning do you think painting still holds? Why is the act of painting by hand still important to you?
A painting is a physical object that you can put on your wall that doesn’t move. It is something that you look at and contemplate, and if it’s good it makes you think a lot. The act of painting is a human form of expression, just like talking or walking.
Where to Experiencethe Art of Katherine Bernhardt
Seoul Arts Center Hangaram Art Museum
Katherine Bernhardt: Some of All My Work
June 6, 2025 – September 28
The Seoul Arts Center is Korea’s premier multi-purpose arts complex where visitors can enjoy concerts, performances, exhibitions and cultural experiences all in one place. Within this impressive complex, the Hangaram Art Museum is a dedicated space primarily showcasing large-scale exhibitions across various genres. The exhibition Katherine Bernhardt: Some of All My Work is the world’s first and largest retrospective that comprehensively explores Bernhardt’s artistic universe. It features over 140 paintings and sculptures, spanning from her early “Supermodel” series that garnered attention when she debuted in the New York art scene in the early 2000s, to large-scale new works specially created for the Korean exhibition.
- www.sac.or.kr
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
A Match Made in Heaven:
Katherine Bernhardt × Jeremy Scott
2025. 2. 7 – 2025. 10. 26
The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, at Johnson County Community College located in Kansas, is a cultural landmark of the region attracting over 100,000 visitors annually since its opening in 2007. The exhibition A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt × Jeremy Scott
presents the works of Missouri-born fashion designer Jeremy Scott alongside contemporary artist Katherine Bernhardt. Together, their works explore a playful approach to pop culture and consumerism.
- nermanmuseum.org
- Korean Air operates direct flights between Incheon and Dallas 7 times a week. Connecting flights to Kansas City take around 1.5 hours.
- Written by. Choi Jini
- Image courtesy of the artist
- Cooperation UNC Gallery
