Katherine Bernhardt’s Peanut Butter and Jelly makes you feel happy to be alive

Installation view of Katherine Bernhardt, Peanut Butter and Jelly, CANADA, New York, NY, 2026

By SIVAN LAVIE May 29th, 2026

Domestic objects: cleaning supplies, vases, sponges, toilet paper, alarm clocks, blenders, house plants, makeup mirrors, cups of coffee, jars of jam all clutter Katherine Bernhardt’s new series of paintings. Peanut Butter and Jelly is a natural continuation of her ongoing Pattern Paintings of the past decade, which star recurring imagery. The PB&J series does that too, and is refreshingly personal, strongly grounded in scenes of home life.  

Bernhardt’s everyday scenes are presented to us as larger than life, hugging the viewer from all sides as six 96x120in paintings wrap around the main gallery of CANADA. The thought in my mind when I stood in this beautiful room was Wow, I feel happy to be alive. Each paper towel roll seems to smile, the watering can to wink, each household object animated into a joyful and meaningful existence of functionality in this artist’s psychedelically styled home, where the paintings were created from observation. Each of the subjects are painted in bleeding, diluted acrylics and glow with neon pink spray painted halo outlines. 

Katherine Bernhardt, Rebirth, 2026, 96 × 120 inches (243.84 × 304.80 cm) Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 

The works look like they were painted hurriedly, in succession, with spontaneous exuberance. Each is treated as a giant coloring page, every single object on these huge canvases colored in meticulously inside the flourescent pink lines, using highly saturated paints. A second room of the show reveals dozens of equally rapid paintings that are smaller, presented in a dense, purposely overstimulating grid installation.

The subjects of these new paintings are layered in front of each other, as if standing in a crowd, competing for a front row seat in these goofy class photos of household belongings. This clustering gives an effect of perspective that was previously missing in Bernhardt’s work, as Pink Panthers, cigarettes and toucans floated, disembodied in the flattened endlessness of neon advertising-like space. By contrast, the objects in the PB&J paintings exist in perspective to each other, grounded in a scene that is relatable, graspable, rooted in space. 

Installation view of Katherine Bernhardt, Peanut Butter and Jelly, CANADA, New York, NY, 2026.

A major inspiration in Bernhardt preparation for the show was Morandi. At first, that may seem surprising, given that Morandi’s still lifes are fleshy, bulbous, and carefully composed studies of light and shadow. Yet in PB&J, Bernhardt’s objects similarly pulse with pleasure and invitation: they feel pluckable, within reach, much like the objects in Morandi’s paintings, in which vases appear to exist from the perspective of loving, everyday human use. 

Bernhardt’s paint application gives respect to her objects. In opposite terms to Morandi’s considered and slow oil brushstrokes, Bernhardt applies her watered down acrylics like quick gymnastic tricks, and in these thin and single layered applications, masterful consideration of texture is present, as level of opacity and type of brushstroke are closely controlled. For example in her work 6-01 (2026), the blender gleams with a flowing, liquidy bubblegum pink, dripping like watercolor. By contrast, the vase is painted with a thicker, modulated consistency of fuchsia, applied with stout, short lines that imply a ceramic texture. A lime green paper towel roll is painted evenly, reflecting a flat and commercially produced texture. A navy blue lean it butter jar is painted in striated brush strokes to create texture, and it’s those very lines that create a bodily desire to open a jar of PB, to appreciate its packaging and enjoy its consummation.

Katherine Bernhardt, 6-01 AM, 2026, 96 × 120 inches (243.84 × 304.80 cm) Acrylic and spray paint on canvas.

The pleasure of experiencing Bernhardt’s works is at surface-level, though not lacking in spirituality. Unlike Rothkos and Agnes Martins, which are best enjoyed when stared at for hours, allowing them to slowly unveil deep truths, Bernhardts are consumed like little colored joy pills, sensory stimulation consumed by the foot, truths revealed by perpetually injecting the viewer with profound excitement. Staring at the works directly is not necessary, merely sitting in their presence is enough, as they fill you like sunlight. WM

Peanut Butter and Jelly runs May 15 — June 20, 2026 at CANADA. 

Katherine Bernhardt, Peanut Butter and Jelly (Cherry Preserves), 2026, 72 × 78 inches (182.88 × 198.12 cm) Acrylic and spray paint on canvas.