Keep moving forward while waiting

Anita Rogers Gallery is pleased to present Keep moving forward while waiting, a solo exhibition of new works by Mark Webber.

Webber’s new work continues his exploration of home building materials alongside found elements from the natural world. However, in this new series, tree branches and stumps assume a more central role, as does the use of color. Branches grow from ruins and encircle architectural forms while fields of saturated color produce curious shifts of light and shadow. Tree stumps rise from the floor like structures, breaking down the distinctions between the built and the organic. Webber, a lifelong builder, avid sailor, kayaker, and martial artist, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He continues to incorporate the wind, the tides, and his tremor in his artistic practice.

My exhibition begins at the forest's edge, with the tree as both the genesis and the silent observer of human habitation. Branches, once part of a living canopy, now engage in a dialogue with the architecture we’ve created—embracing its lines, piercing its planes, or rendering themselves as fine, intricate lines that interact with its imposed geometry. The tree stands as both the skeletal structure and the vital exchange of oxygen. Their seemingly delicate forms, capable of impossible twists and turns, reveal a potent strength, a testament to nature’s innate capacity to devise its own plans.

Moving from the organic origins of the forest towards the stark geometry of building and mathematics, these pieces highlight a quietly miraculous truth. Even when cut and seemingly forgotten, nature’s spirit continues to observe as it holds our histories within its grain and keeps a testament to its enduring resilience.