People of all ages fell in love with the cute, dwarfish alien at the center of Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”. Katherine Bernhardt, who turned 7 the year the movie premiered, was so enamored that she painted portraits of E.T. in art school. In her exhibition “Done with Xanax,” she returned to him, pushing her distinctive blend of pop art, color field and graffiti to a more vulnerable, narrative expression and a more complex painting process.

Katherine Bernhardt sometimes seemed stuck in her signature patterns, which consist of repetitive images of popular commodities and motifs – cigarettes, sharks, cell phones, slices of fruit and floating emojis – on brightly colored surfaces. She has painted fictional characters such as the Pink Panther, Babar the Elephant and Garfield, but E.T. is more complex, complicated by a kind of sacredness, otherness and conflict: he is a stranger in an inhospitable land who has healing powers and wants to go home.

Katherine Bernhardt depicts E.T. individually and large, like an icon, often outlined in gold or silver spray paint, and frequently raises his glowing index finger in blessing. It is reminiscent of moments from the film, but also takes liberties and makes them vaguely recognizable, as can also be the case with scenes from the Bible. In the paintings (in the exhibition at the time) “Halloween in California” and “Halloween E.T. + Strawberries”, for example, the alien wears the blonde wig from the dress-up session in Gertie’s bedroom and a patterned muumuu reminiscent of the Californian suburbs of a certain era. In other songs, he sits in the basket of Elliott’s bicycle or is surrounded by push-button telephones, reflecting his oft-expressed wish: “Phone home! “Sick” is particularly good, where E.T. is wrapped in a bright white blanket that is an unpainted canvas. It symbolizes the way Bernhardt has opened up her work – and her style.