Katherine Bernhardt (b. 1975) paints with a boundless visual appetite — flat, illusion-free canvases where scale, logic, and atmosphere don’t apply, just instinct and association running loose. Each painting reads like a complete thought caught mid-sentence: blunt, lyrical, and a little raucous.

Bernhardt was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1998) and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (2000). She lives and works in St. Louis.

Her retrospective, Some of All of My Work, opened at the Hangaram Art Museum in Seoul in 2025 before traveling to the Gangneung Art Museum in Korea. Her work is held in major collections including the Brant Foundation, the Hirshhorn, the High Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Rubell Museum, among others.

Bernhardt’s soccer ball sculpture Cosmic Clash will be auctioned at Christie’s, with all proceeds benefiting the artist as well as the arts nonprofits ARTS 14C and Studio in a School.