Barbara Sternberger

Barbara Sternberger was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1957. Sternberger studied painting at the University of California at Irvine, receiving her MFA in 1983.  Sternberger’s art career commenced in Southern California, then seamlessly continued in the Pacific Northwest.  Since 1993 Sternberger and her husband, artist Ed Bereal, have lived and worked on their small farm in Bellingham, WA.

Sternberger has exhibited both regionally and nationally, and her paintings are included in numerous private and public collections.  Her work has always been self-generating, never planned.  The paintings gradually evolve during the process of their creation.  They are not impacted by the external world of objects, or by ​a​ desire to depict “thing​s.”  Sternberger’s paintings are somehow familiar, but inexact.  They offer hints of shared knowledge or experience.

Sternberger has long-time representation with Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR, who has presented​ ten solo shows of her work to date.  Her paintings have been the subject of​ three solo museum exhibitions: at the Museum of Northwest Art, the Whatcom Museum​ and at Western Washington University's museum, The Western Gallery.  Sternberger’s work has been featured in the U.S. Art in Embassies Program.

For​ nearly 30 years, Sternberger has taught a painting course​ every summer at Western Washington University. Occasionally Sternberger shares her painting philosophy ​through workshops​ she teaches from her annex studio on their farm.