Feathery blue skies, pheasants, puppies and pretty youths: Many of Karen Kilimnik's paintings read like an adolescent's fanciful dreams.

But fans and curators see more than that. Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, says the artist's work is akin to the ballet, "something that looks so beautiful," with "these women who appear to be suspended in a permanent adolescence but are in fact hardworking, disciplined artists." (Ms. Schaffner organized a 2007 Kilimnik show.)

303 Gallery, NY and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

Karen Kilimnik's 1998 'Prince Albrecht at Home...' will be on view in Greenwich, Conn.

The artist's imagery is lifted from cult TV shows, 18th-century French paintings, foreign fashion magazines and celebrity promo stills.

A solo exhibition of Ms. Kilimnik's work begins this weekend through September at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Conn. (guided tours open to the public by appointment). The show's 60 paintings, drawings and installations are all from the collection of the museum's founders, paper magnate Peter Brant and his wife, the onetime supermodel Stephanie Seymour.

In a phone interview, Ms. Kilimnik herself seems a sweet and shy embodiment of her work. Born in Philadelphia sometime in the 1950s (she's mum on precisely when), she studied architecture at Temple University, worked odd jobs and, ultimately, plied New York dealers with letters and postcards in an effort to get them to show her artwork. Ms. Kilimnik cited a few of her key influences (animal portraitists Sir Edwin Landseer and François Desportes) and explained her paintings' signature small scale: "I couldn't afford anything, I didn't have much room, and I like to work on my own."

Her painting of Leonardo DiCaprio, "Prince Albrecht at Home at the Castle on School Break," sold at Christie's London for $533,117 in October. It's in the Brant Foundation display.

—Rachel Wolff

A version of this article appeared May 5, 2012, on page C14 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Art That Dissects the Pretty.