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These paintings are glimpses of an acid desert dreamland, which you can glimpse but you cannot enter, because its air is made of colored light.  There are things growing here, copulating and multiplying. You can discern their edges in the radiant haze: the needles of a cactus, the fullness of a penis, a tree’s silhouette, a girl’s slender arm. Is she waving to you? Is that her face, or a drop of light?  You cannot enter this world because its air is made of colored light, and your lungs would expire in a magnificent and fragile magenta cloud, leaving the hollow husk of your body to feed a phallus or a cactus. Maybe the girl will scoop out the golden remains of your mind. - Sean McElroy

Caitlin Berndt is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York (b. 1983 Baltimore, MD). She received her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2006) and her MFA from The University of Washington, School of Art, Seattle, WA (2012).

Berndt’s work has been featured in exhibitions across the US. In 2019 she had a solo exhibition at Kate Oh Gallery (NYC). Select group exhibitions include: Tops Gallery (Memphis, TN), Anna Zorina (NYC), Soft Times Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Zolla Lieberman (Chicago, IL), First Street Gallery (NYC), and Bryan Ohno Gallery (Seattle, WA). Additionally, she has had fellowships in Spain, Italy and Israel and has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center.

Caitlin has been a visiting artist & critic at WCSU MFA, Union College BFA and at MICA BFA and has taught visual arts courses at Pratt Institute, MICA, University of Washington and TCNJ among others. She is currently an adjunct professor at CUNY City College of New York.