Bernhardt cites Chris Ofili, Peter Doig, and Alex Katz as influences, but her high-octane approach has more in common with the abstract expressionists — or, more specifically, action painters. Using magazines as her source material, Bernhardt paints portraits of models and celebrities. The brutal results — angry brushstrokes at odd angles and faces marred by drips of paint, as if their finely applied makeup is melting off of them — are reminiscent of Willem de Kooning's women, odes to hatred and high-pitched contradictory feelings. But ask her about it, and she'll claim there is no commentary involved. "There's aggression and energy in how I paint, but it's just how I paint," she says.
Bernhardt, 33, grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and came to New York City in 1998. She started painting portraits after receiving her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2000. "I always liked magazines, so I started painting from them." Bjork and a Versace ad were early subjects, until Bernhardt found herself in the middle of a Kate Moss moment. "All of a sudden [Moss] was in about 18 different ad campaigns at one time. She was everywhere, so I started painting her." One thing led to another, and Bernhardt got pulled deep into the swirling vortex of Kate. "I like her crazy persona. She's more than a model, she draws people in with her crazy antics." Bernhardt showed the series of crazed Kates at a show entitled "Kiss Me, Kate" at Galleri Loyal in Stockholm in 2007.
At her studio in Flatbush, a largely West Indian section of Brooklyn, Bernhardt answers the door wearing an oversized sweatshirt, hoop earrings the size of bracelets and metallic boots that look like something an astronaut might slip into as après ski wear. "Hey," she says in a voice that's both high and tough, like that of a streetwise child. Then she lets loose a torrent of giggles, as she often does. She's the kind of person who you call when you want to have a girls' night out, drink too many drinks, and see what kind of trouble you can unearth.
Hot 97 hip-hop is blaring on the radio as Bernhardt shows me her recent work (and when you're turning out four or five canvases a day, 'recent' means about as fresh as the milk in your grocery store's dairy case). She'll be showing this new crop of portraits of Rihanna, M.I.A., and model Alice Dellal at Carbon 12 gallery in Dubai in April.
Bernhardt is represented in New York by the gallery Canada. Her show there last spring, "Kate, Giselle, Agyness, Simon, Kanye and George", coincided with the release of a book of her work,"The Magnificent Excess of Snoop Dogg". In it, her paintings are featured side-by-side with the source material — the magazine images she paints from. In this context, it's easier to get a handle on the destroy-all-glamour makeovers Bernhardt gives her subjects. The eyes are what stand out the most. Bernhardt takes the models' sultry, sidelong gazes, and turns them into full-on stares. Some look schizo, some look scared; others, just plain lost. But the overall effect is like a walk at the zoo, with all the animals staring back at you.
The one subject Bernhardt shies away from is herself. She doesn't do self-portraits, and she's reluctant to offer any sort of self-analysis of her work. But a few days after my visit, an uncommon moment of reflection overtakes Bernhardt and she sends me this message in an e-mail: "You could say that all my paintings are self portraits... I guess I see myself as maybe a "wild and crazy" kind of person, antics and all. The paintings are moody and rushed because that's how I am. I guess they are a direct reflection on me."
Up next for Bernhardt is a series of Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. She met him last year in London, at the opening of her show at Ransom Gallery, and the two hit it off. "He's perfect," she says, showing me some of the images she'll be working from. "After all, he wears make-up." And, in a departure from her usual subject matter, she plans to do a series of paintings of Swatch Watches. Asked to explain, she just shrugs: "I love the eighties," she says with a giggle. ■