Eran Webber, Sculptor

At the beginning of the year, we had the pleasure of interviewing Eran Webber, a magnificent artist and, above all, an amazing human being.

Let us tell you his story.   

Eran Webber came to Florence in 2008, graduated and taught in the Florence Academy of Art for 6 years before returning home to Israel where he currently resides and produces his work.

His love for art began at an early age, occupying much of his time, even at school, with drawing. He candidly recalls how when he was a child, he used to placed art books under his pillow at night, in the hopes that the art from the pages might seep into his mind while he was sleeping. After years of taking courses and attempting to make his art “in an amateur way”, he finally decided at the age of 25 to make art the center of his life and to devote his career to creating.

Eran’s education commenced in Israel via courses with a few Israeli artists, until 2008, when he came to Florence to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti.

At first, he was enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, though he soon learned it was not the environment he was yearning for.

Fortuitously, he was introduced to the Florence Academy of Art, where he immediately felt that his journey had lead him to the right place and amongst the right people. He had found his niche and in having done so, dove intensely into sculpture for the next 10 years.

While in his former years, he had been dedicated to chasing the two-dimensional-world of drawing and painting, he found himself greatly affected by the impact and challenge of sculpture, after an Italian sculptor introduced him to the medium during his year at the Accademia di Belle Arti. “There’s a world of things you can describe in three dimensions which is so huge, that it became this enormous challenge and the effect that sculpture had on me, once I knew what it took to make it, was such a strong impact… I can’t leave the field, it’s just too fascinating.”

As the self-proclaimed prisoner to the field of sculpture, his career has had its moments, both of glory and of challenge. While he believes that the best of these moments has yet to come, the one he regards most highly is the moment in which he realized that he was capable of bringing his visions to fruition; that he was able to, with his hands, create what was in his mind. The challenges, he finds, come in choosing his projects, since it appears that for Eran, the world is “too full” of inspirational material. “The hardest thing for me is actually to focus on one element, so many people…stories… narratives, could be an inspiration.”

The rabbit hole of inspiration has lead Eran down many paths, the current of which is a visual narrative series of personal stories that others have lived, “…tragedies of different individuals and how the course of life took them…”. He views the creation of each project as a means of personal research, from which he can learn and grow, describing it as a type of marriage that is cultivated and slowly evolves over time. Once Eran finishes a project, not only does he hope that he has made a comprehensive sculptural representation of his subject’s story, but he hopes that his work does not force anyone to think in any certain way. Rather, his intention is to “take the shell of people” and to leave as much room as possible for the viewers to make of it their own.

When asked why he makes representational art, he laughingly responded, “I don’t think I chose representational art, I think representational art chose me!” He goes on to recount the first time he went to a museum as a child and how the only thing he remembers from that day is the sense of shock and awe that he felt the moment that he laid eyes on the works of the Old Masters. He recalls being filled with the desire to know “…how one becomes that great…”. Another of Eran’s motivations to discover how to become “great”, was his Grandfather, who although now passed, was an accomplished artist himself, “a pioneer”, who sadly was of a time that did not permit the pursuit of art as a career, “…but I can, it’s a different world than where he grew up…”.

To Eran, representational art is a vehicle that can take him from one part of his journey to another, “a river that can connect to another river, that can connect to an ocean of things…that could end up anywhere…”. He believes that everyone must choose their own path in art and advises artists and students to open up any door that they come across, stating that there is a world of art, technique, passion and theory that can be accessed through these doors. He does add the caveat however, “make sure that it is not your last door,” urging all of us to remember that the concept of start and finish is all in one’s mind, and that the only way to live is to “chase your mind…make your dreams become real, be professional and preserve your integrity - this way, the only legitimate person left to stop you will be yourself “.