Katherine Bernhardt
Some of All My Work,
Jun 6 – Sep 28, 2025
Upcoming: Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram Art Museum

This exhibition marks the world’s first and largest retrospective of Katherine Bernhardt—an artist who continues to forge a distinctive path in the contemporary art world with her bold and uninhibited visual language.
This comprehensive showcase brings together around 140 paintings and sculptures, tracing Bernhardt’s artistic journey from her early 2000s supermodel series, which made waves upon her debut in the New York art scene, to her newest works created especially for this exhibition in Korea.
Bernhardt has reinterpreted everyday consumer objects and symbols of pop culture—such as Pink Panther, E.T., Pikachu, The Simpsons, Doritos, Nike, and Crocs—using vibrant colors and spontaneous brushstrokes. These familiar and contemporary motifs are reborn through her hands into playful yet tension-filled visual expressions within a fresh painterly context. Her work resists predetermined forms or themes, functioning as an experimental field where personal experiences and contemporary sensibilities are freely interwoven.
Her belief in the medium of painting—and the freedom it allows—alongside her refusal to conform to established rules, has made Katherine Bernhardt one of the most dynamic and influential artists in contemporary art today. Rather than relying on conventions, she trusts her own intuition, prioritizing instinct over form, and exploring the limitless possibilities of painting. Her continuous questioning of how and what to paint expands the boundaries of contemporary art and suggests a new spectrum for the medium.
The exhibition unfolds across five thematic sections, arranged chronologically to highlight key periods in her life and work. The final section features a large recreation of her studio in St. Louis, Missouri, where some of her newest works will be unveiled to the public for the first time. Visitors will encounter Bernhardt's creative environment—surrounded by the objects, colors, and structures that have inspired her—and gain an immersive insight into her artistic universe and daily life.
Revered for pushing the boundaries of painting, Katherine Bernhardt has become a kind of artistic phenomenon through her experimentation and fearless expression. This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on her fearless, bold painterly approach and offers a moment to reconsider how we perceive visual language in our everyday lives through the experience of contemporary art.