Katherine Bernhardt (B. 1975)

With its acrylic glare and strident painterly gestures, Anna Barrios Pucci Print, 2006, is a striking example of Katherine Bernhardt’s engagement with the fantastical trappings of seduction, decadence and corruption. Looming larger than life, Bernhardt’s signature demoiselle is at once it-girl, goddess and super-heroine, languishing in the ennui of money, power, and style. Ill-fitting triangles becomes a designer bikini, lurid circles pose as eye-shadow, and pink terrains of skin drip with melting suggestion of fake tan or plastic surgery. Approaching painting as a platform for fictional narratives, Bernhardt’s imagined characters hint at the vacuity of media images and contemporary consumer culture.