Loyal is pleased to present a new solo exhibition by Katherine Bernhardt, Nomad. This is Bernhardt’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Katherine Bernhardt gravitates towards the phenomenal. She seems to seek out beauty that has been taken to a certain state of stylized perfection. Bernhardt finds this in the hyperreal atmosphere of fashion photography, and she is well known for her brave approach in her paintings of models.

Bernhardt’s paintings balance between composed and wild. And there’s a rhythmical positioning to her quick, elegant slashes and broad, bold strokes which intersect the canvas in swaths. Every feature — an arm, an elbow sinking into a pose, pink cheeks, a blue jacket — are broken down to their key elements of pattern, color and form. Bernhardt organizes these elements, like delicately stacked weighted objects, to build her figures.

There is a second theme in the show, and here perhaps the structural aspects shine through even stronger. What appear to be free-floating abstractions are in fact derived from the handwoven rugs of the nomadic tribes of Morocco. The harmonic diamond patterns in the rugs are a starting point which Bernhardt transmogrifies through her bold and seductive use of paint on canvas.

Katherine Bernhardt (1975 in St Louis, Missouri) lives and works in New York. Since receiving her MFA from School of Visual Arts, New York in 2000, Bernhardt’s work has been exhibited extensively both in New York and internationally. Her first show with Loyal was in 2007 in Stockholm. She is represented by CANADA in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: Rites of Spring Passage, Carbon 12, Dubai (solo 2011), Tombouctou 52 Jours, CANADA, New York (solo 2010), Hot Pop Time Machine, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen (solo 2010), Lila Dit Ca, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris (solo 2010). Notable group exhibitions include: Material, curated by Duro Olawu, Salon 94, New York (2012), Katherine Bernhardt, Alfred Jensen, Chris Johanson, Chris Martin, Andrew Masullo, Judith Scott, Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York (2011), and New York Minute: 60 Artists on the New York Scene, curated by Kathy Grayson, Macro Future Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2009).