Environmentally exposed to various degrees — some even bear the holes that Sternberg used to pull these paintings through different bodies of water, primarily the Pacific Ocean — these are the fruits of a grander environmental experiment that he has been carrying out for over five years. According to Yeo Workshop’s press release, “The title of the show to join the larger raindrop of the ocean, alludes to the piercings marked on several paintings in the show — a feature that is novel to Sternberg’s paintings.”
While he has sometimes hidden these piercings in the past, when exposed to the viewer, they are not just a part of the final product, but allude to where the paintings have been and in a sense, what they have been through to achieve their final form. Says the press release, “They form visual references to ripples of the ocean and fractures of light, gesturing at the destructive and regenerative forces of nature that Sternberg has allowed to intervene and determine the works. These canvases have been exposed to winds, storms and dragged in large bodies of water, simultaneously composed and redacted by earth.”