At the Core: Recent Paintings by Barbara Sternberger

The Western Gallery is proud to present AT THE CORE: Recent Paintings by Barbara Sternberger from September 24 to December 13, 2025.

AT THE CORE presents a selection of 30 oil paintings by Sternberger chosen from the Bellingham-based artist’s production since 2019. Centered on the Pathways Series, the exhibition explores Sternberger’s turn away from traditional easel painting in 2017–19 to directly engage with the materials and process of painting. For example, the artist uses dry pigments to create custom oil color bars for applying paint. She rejects brushes to instead work the paint freely with her hands on canvases attached to the wall.  

Since 2019, Barbara Sternberger has charted an independent path that redefined her work. She works each day to find and convey a sense of Chinese philosophy’s chi—the life force or “breath”—through color and in the dense surface of two hands painting. Her work in the studio yields fields of nuanced whites over earlier color layers, and the paintings convey the artist’s compelling process of discovery and denial, birthing and letting go. For this new work, Sternberger’s sources are as diverse as Chinese philosophers' writing on the ancient art of painting and the American artist Phillip Guston’s reflections on the struggles of a contemporary painter’s life.

The Western Gallery will host an Opening Reception on October 9 from 5:00-7:00 pm. Public programs will take place throughout the exhibition and include an Artist Talk by Sternberger on October 30, 6:00 pm, and a Curator Talk by Bruce Guenther on November 13 at 6:00 pm.

Barbara Sternberger

Barbara Sternberger is an exceptional abstract painter based in Bellingham, Washington. She has exhibited regionally and nationally, and her paintings are included in numerous private and public collections. AT THE CORE represents her third one-person museum exhibition. Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland represents the artist.

Bruce Guenther is the exhibition guest curator. As the retired chief curator at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, Guenther is now an independent curator and art historian with deep experience.

The Western Gallery thanks artist Barbara Sternberger and guest curator Bruce Guenther for the exquisite exhibition. The Homer Bernard Mathes Endowment and Marian Boylan Endowment generously supported AT THE CORE.

All images are copyright of the artist.