cole sternberg

digital

a floating island (2015-2023)

debuted with Verse, 2023.

A floating island took us across the Pacific. Twenty-two days at sea. On a sunny day, between the storms, the ocean recomposed a painting and we were off.

This body of work photographically chronicles that journey. Each image was shot while crossing the Ocean on an ultra-bulk cargo vessel’s maiden voyage from the shipyard in Western Japan to the U.S in 2015, using a Canon 35mm camera from the 70s. They are a frozen moment in time without grounding in a time. They are the macro of the sea and the micro of our floating home, unencumbered by the trappings of the outside world.

On the fourth day of this journey, I threw a painting in the Ocean and let it surf the wake. This singular action and resultant composition led me down an eight year path of environmental exposure, culminating in the painterly component of these works. The painterly elements of a floating island were physically made in the manner of that initial piece. They are painted layers of acrylic and watercolor on raw linen, left to the water to recompose themselves, each surfing its own wake. They are their own translation of the environment in and of themselves.

Each work is collaged purposefully for visual composition and storylines. Every work of a floating island embraces its own singular unique photograph and painting and hence are constrained by the limited volume of the physical series of paintings and photographic imagery. It is a finite eight years of creation culminating herein.

a floating island should make one wonder of scale, of irrational human hubris and of the ability of the earth to recompose itself. It is both hopeful and dire, inspirational and fearsome, endless and entrapping.

the spring begins with the first rainstorm

released on Art Blocks, 2022.

the spring begins with the first rainstorm is my merger of earthly patterning and digital dynamics, seeing both organisms as collaborators in an effort to erase the human hand and glimpse into an environmental portal.

My inspiration comes from falling in the fountains of the Louvre as a child and sneaking past the guards to enter the glass temple dripping and squishing with each step – from Sigmar Polke’s dispersion paintings – from Joseph Beuys and Bas Jan Ader – from Aldous Huxley and John Muir – from the plentiful and the barren – from the joy of discovery and the fear of what could unravel.

I started with the pattern variable, this movement was first created by dragging large paintings through the ocean until my brushstrokes disappeared and the earth becomes the composer. The movement that emerged is akin to light fracturing through water, the bark of trees, or the skin of reptiles. When redacted into visible pixels it harkens to traditional screen-printing and a web 1.0 dream. When the patterns start multiplying, they become portals to elsewhere, while also signifying a system trying to ‘learn’ the movements of the earth. I see the ‘hibernal’ as blizzards, ‘maelstrom’ as dreams of the deep water and the ‘arboretum’ as lush gardens. The palette variable is meant to mirror lavish watercolor washes while the smokey ribboning represents the winds. In totality, I hope is to blur many lines – constructed and broken down, calming and fearsome, aspirational and apocalyptic.

chaos comes with the summer haze

released on Art Blocks, 2023.

As the temperature reads 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius), the hottest on record in the spot where I stand, my shoes are melting into the asphalt and my vision is blurred. I wonder how we got here from those rainy springs and where we will go. The heat’s visible haze makes me doubt the possibility of future Augusts spent outdoors. It is in this haze that chaos comes with the summer haze takes form.

My inspiration is from both beauty and fear - the beauty of the land, the water, the flowers, the beauty of paint and code, the beauty of humanity – the fear of panic and mob mentalities, the fear of incongruity and environmental collapse, the fear of humankind. It is from the obsessiveness, visual overload, content overload, and our aching yet hopeful eyes as we stare towards the horizon.

chaos comes with the summer haze is specifically aligned with my art practice, which for decades has attempted to address technology, climate change, human irrationality and human rights, while being unencumbered by limitations of medium. Whether it is dragging paintings in the ocean, writing a new constitution, or encoding this Project, all have the same goal - creating impressions that are pleasing while acting as guideposts or warnings. Here, I’ve ratcheted up the intensity of everything. The breadth of coloration, brushstrokes and variety of possible outputs push dramatically in a way only possible through the generative process. Many times, I feel the code taking over the composition with the intent of heightening the chaos itself, perhaps adding an exclamation point to the warning therein.

Visually, it is symptomatic of both human and earthly chaos. The earthly ‘gestalts’ are the seas rising and the clouds gathering. The ‘meltdowns’ are the human brushstrokes that feel panicked, despite being controlled. They are haphazard, geometric and duplicative. They obscure reality. The handpicked colors touch the rainbow of possibilities, but are affected by that summer haze. The ‘shadow frequency’ demonstrates content overload, duplication and machine learning, all creating further feelings of distress. There are layers and layers of possibilities – of coffee stains, of visual heat, of faces, of ideas, of dimensional portals, of the future...