Ann Weber

Dolby Chadwick Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition with the sculptor Ann Weber. Scheduled to open on June 7th, this exhibition presents a new body of work featuring biomorphic and organic forms constructed from an unexpected, everyday material: cardboard.

To create her oversized sculptures, Weber first constructs a template of a particular shape she’s been pondering—shapes evident in this most recent body of work were inspired by experiences as diverse as a recent tour through Rome to an affinity for a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed indoor parking lot in Racine, Wisconsin. Upon achieving a satisfactory form, the template becomes an armature around which Weber weaves long strips of found cardboard. A battery of staples anchors the cardboard in place while a coating of polyurethane provides additional protection and imparts the material with a rich sheen. Pilfered from a number of different sources, the cardboard Weber uses constitutes a spectrum of browns, bleached whites, vibrant colors, and surfaces fractured by imprinted text and logos.

Often the sculptures are comprised of two or more forms that complement or realize each other’s negative spaces. In the case of You My Butterfly (2012), for instance, two 88-inch tall forms with curved backs face in towards each other to resemble an inverted butterfly. With wings transposed in opposite directions, the harmoniously engaged, almost identical structures form a mirror image of each other. Such allusions to interpersonal relationships, connectivity, and communication are both extensions of and metonyms for the larger human concerns that preoccupy Weber: “My abstract sculptures read as metaphors for life experiences, such as the balancing acts that define our lives. ‘How far can I build this before it collapses?’ is a question on my mind as I work.”