Katherine Bernhardt: Spring Cleaning

For the High Line’s 18th Street Billboard, Katherine Bernhardt presents Spring Cleaning, a painting of a vivid, crowded still life that stages an encounter between domestic labor, consumer goods, and everyday ritual. Cleaning supplies such as paper towel rolls, glass cleaner, Ajax, and dish soap sit atop a packed white kitchen counter alongside bananas, a pot of purple orchids, a stick of butter, a to-go coffee cup, and a fuchsia sink faucet. Rendered in Bernhardt’s signature palette of bright color and assertive brushwork, the composition is unified by a bright pink spray-painted outline, a recurring gesture in her practice. The familiar objects hover between order and chaos, utility and excess. On view in the spring on the High Line, the work resonates with seasonal rituals of renewal while reflecting the challenges of maintaining order within a culture shaped by constant consumption and accumulation.

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