Ethereum

a floating island #4

Collection

a floating island (2015-2023) by Cole Sternberg

Description

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.

Traits

Artist

Cole Sternberg

Artwork