A solo exhibition of new work, It’s All In The Fold, by Peter Weber will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on July 3 for the First Friday West Palace Art District Gallery Walk from 5:00-7:30 p.m. and extends through July 31. A Reception for the Artist will be held on Friday, July 17 from 5-7 p.m.

Squares of dense felt fabric are folded, woven, pressed. A red piece begins in a braided pattern that opens out into the natural drape of fabric. A white piece is intricately folded so that each line, highlight, and shadow offers a new aspect that echoes yet augments the last. Blue felt makes a rhythmic pattern of squares and lines that insinuate movement.

German artist Peter Weber began as a painter in the Op Art movement, working primarily with pen and ink to create intricate patterned drawings. At that time he began to make small paper foldings as invitations to his exhibitions. He soon found that his experiments trying to create more and more elaborate foldings from one single sheet were more interesting than his painting.

Over the course of many years Weber has developed his technique, in which he uses a single piece of material to create intricate patterns and designs which often trick the eye into believing they must be made from multiple pieces. He uses a variety of materials, from paper to steel, but his favored material is felt.  As Weber says, “Felt is by far the most powerful for me, since this material is very repellent against my folding ideas. So it is a great challenge for me to ‘conquer’ the material.” Often described as structures, these felt works, hanging from the wall but with a sculptural, three-dimensional form have, as one spends time with them, a distinct and persistent presence.

Although some of Weber’s artistic influences may be easily referenced by a viewer, there are other influences which are more subtle, if not less profound. Weber is a talented jazz musician and has been playing double-bass for many years. Knowing this background the pattern and repetition of lines, shadows, and folds in his work, which form a visual rhythm across the piece, become clearly linked to music. One even less obvious relationship in Weber’s work is tied to his skill as a bee-keeper. As Weber says, “I am fascinated by [the bee's] complex structure, their incredible organization of their hives, their clearly structured systems. I admire their being an ‘entirety,’ a ‘wholeness.’” It is easy to feel the kinship between these small makers of delicate and mathematically precise constructions and Weber’s elaborate and complex structures.

Understanding Weber’s technique and that these pieces are made by hand, of one piece of material, after a careful process of planning and design based on mathematical ideas certainly adds a level of complexity. Although appreciation of contemporary art often seems to require a familiarity with art history, theory, and technique, what is so refreshing about the works of Peter Weber is that although they trace a lineage to Concrete Art, Op Art, Minimalism, and in fact to the very beginnings of abstraction with its links to music, they clearly have their own inherent weight. Knowing how they are executed only adds to their magic.

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Quiet and contemplative, the pieces in Peter Weber’s It’s All In The Fold, offer viewers an experience which deftly combines mastery of material with a magic that transcends technique.