Cole Sternberg (American, b. 1979) is a conceptual artist working across painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, film and writing to examine humanity's destructive yet unbreakable bond with nature. He studied business at Villanova University and earned a Juris Doctor from American University before turning to art full time. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Sternberg's paintings often let the environment act as a collaborator: for the 2017 exhibition “the windward side of the island” at MAMA Gallery in Berlin, he dragged canvases through the Pacific Ocean along the windward side of Santa Catalina Island, letting the water fade and reshape the paint into geometric patterns. He returned to this method of working with natural elements in 2026, burying, rain-exposing and flagpole-flying paintings for along the high embankments, a site-specific installation made with Los Angeles Nomadic Division at Presqu'ile Winery in Santa Maria Valley, California. In his 2020 exhibition “FreeState” at ESMoA, he staged the Free Republic of California, an invented nation-state complete with its own constitution, budget, clothing and billboards spread across the museum. The show closed with owls stirred the silence here and there, an installation he described as feeling romantic and immersive even as it decayed with the rising tide. His work is held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the El Segundo Museum of Art and the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania.
