the spring begins with the first rainstorm is an on-chain generative art series by renowned conceptual artist Cole Sternberg.

The project is a 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. ’

- Cole Sternberg, 2022

The project consists of 487 unique works, each generated upon minting. They exist in perpetuity on the Ethereum blockchain and are adaptable to variations in technology and scale.

This site is a repository for dialogue regarding the work and an ongoing discussion of the work as it continues to exist in the world.