Ann Weber makes monumental sculpture out of found cardboard boxes. Her interest is in expanding the possibilities of making beauty from a common and mundane material. Weber’s sculptures have a mystery or double meaning to them. Neither entirely representational nor abstract, but something in between, she wants the viewers to bring their own associations to the artwork.
She received her BA in Art History from Purdue University and an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts studying under artist Viola Frey, whose large-scale sculptures greatly influenced Weber’s work. Weber lives and works in San Pedro next to the Port of Los Angeles
She was awarded a Pollock Krasner Grant in 2018. Residencies, including American Academy in Rome; Oberpfalzer Kunslerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany; International School of Beijing and the De Young Museum in San Francisco provide her with opportunities to create sculpture in extraordinary settings and interact with a diverse audience.
Recent exhibitions at SFMOMA in San Francisco; Long Beach Museum of Art; Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles and Torrance Art Museum garnered press in notable publications including Los Angeles Times, Sculpture Magazine, American Craft and San Francisco Chronicle.
ARTIST STATEMENT
From the humblest of materials, I build monumental forms expanding the possibilities of resourcefulness and beauty. After 15 years of making functional pottery, I left New York City for California to study with Viola Frey at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Her influence on me was totemic.
To create the sculptures I use found cardboard boxes garnered from foraging the streets or in wine stores, which I cut into strips and staple together over a cardboard armature. The color of the box, not the paint animates the surface. The text printed on the boxes subverts the meaning of advertising to reveal “text messages”. The sculptures can be viewed as a critique of contemporary consumerist culture but that is not my sole intent. They are instilled with a psychological component, neither entirely representational nor abstract, but something in between.
Working on individual series of works, I chronicle my personal life and the events of our time using the sculptures as allegories. Universal connectivity, joy, wonder as well as a sharing of sorrows and crises are themes I work with to contribute to the contemporary zeitgeist of this wild and glorious world.