“From walking around NYC one day I saw graffiti near Union Square, graffiti that included a popsicle, a smiley face, a watermelon, a dollar sign and something else… So I appropriated those images and then I made paintings in that fashion.”
Katherine Bernhardt interviewed in 2015

Initially gaining recognition in the early 2000s through her figurative works, Katherine Bernhardt has turned her attention away from this subject matter, and has become focused on ‘pattern paintings’. Influenced heavily by a trip to Morocco Bernhardt made in 2007, we see a series full of colour and two-dimensionality. The present lot, Hawaiian Punch (2014) is a fantastic example of this. The artist’s captivation with the colourful prints of African textiles, the eclectic patterns of Moroccan rugs and the loud tags of urban graffiti is ever present in the work.

Bold colours and simplified forms create an overall flatness akin to fabric designs, whilst the background tones of fluorescent pink and purple emulate the tropical nature of her subject matter. What Bernhardt captures is the cliché, sexy, nocturnal Hawaii – tropical cocktails, cigarettes, pineapples, watermelon and other exotic fruits reverberate in a hallucinogenic swirling space where any sense of time is eradicated in favour of enjoyment, pleasure and fun.