Katherine Bernhardt: Why is a mushroom growing in my shower? | Works on Paper

Concurrent with the St. Louis—based artist’s first exhibition with David Zwirner at our London gallery, this online presentation of new works on paper features motifs from Bernhardt’s latest body of work.

Featuring mushrooms, showers—and sometimes mushrooms taking showers—and other motifs from Bernhardt’s unique visual lexicon, these works cull from an irreverent American pop vernacular as well as the artist’s own life and the broader culture.

Katherine Bernhardt was inspired by the mushrooms sprouting from DJ and producer Diplo’s limited-edition collaboration with Crocs. Bernhardt in her studio, St. Louis, April 2022. Photo by Elizabeth Bernhardt

“My main inspirations recently have been the tiled shower room of my studio that is tiled in four-by-four green tiles with orange grout. I love thinking about things in the shower or things taking a shower. It’s a weird small space to put objects in and then make paintings of them.”

—Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 1/2 x 26 inches (100.3 x 66 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

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Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

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Bernhardt designed the green shower with orange grout for her studio in St. Louis, a six-thousand-square-foot warehouse and former auto shop that she fully revamped after returning to her hometown in 2019. Photo by Lyndon French, 2021

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

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Works featuring Garfield and the Pink Panther—two recurring subjects for Bernhardt—in the artist’s studio in St. Louis, 2021. Photo by Lyndon French

In addition to her newest inspirations, this latest body of work features familiar imagery including Garfield, E.T., and the Pink Panther, pop-cultural icons as well as references initially inspired by Bernhardt’s son, Khalifa, and what he was watching or playing with.

Bernhardt at work on a painting of a mushroom in her studio’s shower, a place she conceives as a setting for these outlandish forms as well as a space to brainstorm new ideas. Video by Elizabeth Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

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Installation view of new works on paper by Katherine Bernhardt, 2022

Installation view of new work on paper by Katherine Bernhardt, 2022

Jean-Pierre Raynaud's La Maison de La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Paris, opened in 1974

“It’s a funny space to paint about. I like humor in paintings, so shoes taking a shower is funny to me. It’s also an awesome grid of squares with perspective, which I love and related to Superstudio’s grid designs from the seventies. I also think of David Hockney and his shower paintings. I love those.”

—Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

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For her works on paper, Bernhardt draws first and then applies layers of colorful acrylic paint thinned with water, which pool and run together on the surface. Here, new works on paper are laid out on the studio floor for review. Photo by Katherine Bernhardt

Visit Katherine Bernhardt’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner London through July 30

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

Inquire

“I’m also inspired by Crocs and specifically the Diplo Crocs that have magic mushrooms on them that glow in the dark.

“Those Crocs inspired me to look into mushrooms and paint mushrooms. Some people take mushrooms as a drug. I don’t. I eat mushrooms and look at mushrooms and paint mushrooms.”

—Katherine Bernhardt

The Crocs x Diplo shoes in Bernhardt’s studio, 2022. Photo by Elizabeth Bernhardt

Bernhardt playfully joins the absurd and the relevant. Her recent focus on mushrooms touches on the cultural trend of the return of mycological fixations in popular culture. Video by Elizabeth Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

Inquire

Bernhardt’s recurring motifs and characters are amplified by her signature palette of electrifying hues, as well as color combinations inspired by bathrooms she has designed herself—among them, pink tiles with green grout, blue tiles with red grout, purple tiles with orange grout, and white tiles with black grout.

A bathroom at Bernhardt’s gallery and storage building in St. Louis, Dragon, Crab and Turtle, which she designed with pink tile and green grout. Photo by Sarah Carmody

Katherine Bernhardt

Untitled, 2022

Acrylic on paper

39 3/4 x 26 1/4 inches (101 x 66.7 cm)
Framed: 42 1/8 x 28 1/2 inches (107 x 72.4 cm)

Inquire

“I don’t usually paint in the shower, just use it as inspiration.”

—Katherine Bernhardt

Katherine Bernhardt paints a mushroom in her studio’s green shower. Photo by Elizabeth Bernhardt

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