Peanut Butter and Jelly

CANADA is excited to present _Peanut Butter and Jelly_, a solo exhibition of new work by Katherine Bernhardt. The show features vividly colored paintings drawn directly from her domestic life in St. Louis. The exhibition takes its title from the familiar comfort food, signaling the artist's enduring interest in the visual and emotional resonance of everyday experience. Bernhardt's recent work is rooted in the distinctive modernist home she has spent the past five years restoring on Lindell Boulevard, opposite the Missouri History Museum. Originally built in the 1980s and known for its bold, maximalist design, the house now serves as both subject and studio—a total environment where architecture, objects, and lived experience converge. Reimagined by the artist, the space reflects a renewed commitment to color, pattern, and the exuberant visual language of postmodern design. The paintings in _Peanut Butter and Jelly_ translate this environment into Bernhardt's signature style: flattened compositions, saturated hues, and vivid, often fluorescent outlines. Everyday objects-kitchenware, appliances, packaged goods, and decorative items—are elevated into recurring motifs, drawn from the artist's immediate surroundings. These works capture the energy of a lived-in space, where the ordinary becomes a site of visual intensity and formal experimentation. Throughout the exhibition, Bernhardt also incorporates portraits of family members and herself, embedding figures within richly detailed interiors. These compositions merge personal narrative with broader art historical references, from portraiture to still life, while maintaining her distinctive voice. Iconic works of art and design— alongside personal collections and furnishings—recur across the canvases, reinforcing the interplay between daily life and cultural memory. Taken together, the paintings in _Peanut Butter and Jelly_ offer a vivid portrait of an artist's world. Bernhardt's home emerges not simply as a backdrop, but as an active, generative space-one that shapes and reflects her identity as a painter, collector, and observer of contemporary life. The exhibition invites viewers into this environment, where color, repetition, and familiarity coalesce into a dynamic and deeply personal visual language. Bernhardt was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000. The artist has been the subject of solo exhibitions worldwide. The survey exhibition, _Katherine Bernhardt: Some of All of My Work_, was presented at the Hangaram Art Museum in the Seoul Arts Center in 2025 and subsequently traveled to Gangneung Art Museum, Sorol, Korea. Also in 2025, _A Match Made in Heaven_, a two-person presentation with fashion designer Jeremy Scott, was held at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas. In 2018, the solo exhibition _Katherine Bernhardt: Watermelon World_ was held at the Museo Mario Testino (MATE) in Lima, Peru. In 2017, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, presented _FOCUS: Katherine Bernhardt_. In the same year, the artist painted a sixty-foot-long mural entitled _XXL Superflat Pancake_ for the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum. Her work has also been included in significant group exhibitions, such as _NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection_, Rubell Museum, Miami (2015; traveled to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, through 2017); and _Bad Touch_, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago (2002). Work by the artist is found in prominent public and museum collections worldwide, including The Brant Foundation, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Rubell Museum, Miami; among others. Bernhardt lives and works in St. Louis.