Kerri Scharlin

Kerri Scharlin is an American painter and conceptual artist who lives and works in New York City. She is known for a series of conceptual projects made in the 1990s that explored identity through the outsourcing of self portraiture to observers such as police sketch artists, art students, and magazine profilers. The New York Times said her works are “proof that identity is not fixed, that one’s persona and possibly even one’s self are malleable and fluid, capable of continual adjustment.” She earned a BA from Barnard College, a BFA from School of Visual Arts, and attended the Hunter College MFA program.

Work

Witnessed From 1991-1993 Scharlin asked artist friends to describe her to police sketch artists. She then photographically enlarged and exhibited the resulting portraits. The artists in the show included Janine Antoni, Fred Wilson, Wendy Jacob, Sam Samore, Gary Simmons, Devon Dikeou, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. She exhibited the resulting works at Dooley LeCappellaine Gallery in New York. She displayed storyboards based on their scripts, as well as videos of thirty-five actresses auditioning for the role of "Kerri Scharlin", at Wooster Gardens in New York. Artnet called the paintings, "scary, eroticized Children of the Corn work which stared back cunningly".

Exhibitions Scharlin has had solo exhibitions at Dooley LeCappellaine, New York (1993), Postmasters Gallery, New York (1993), Jose Freire Gallery, New York (1994), Schaper Sundberg Galleri, Stockholm (1995), Wooster Gardens, New York (1997), Kustera Tilton Gallery, New York (2006), and New Release Gallery, New York (2019).

She curated the show The Big Nothing or Le Presque Rien at the New Museum in 1992.

Personal life Scharlin lives in New York with her husband Peter. She has a son and daughter.