neil ferber
Mediums Used
Neil Ferber sculpts Modern Contemporary Architectural Art. The work for sale on this is mainly in Marble, but could easily be reproduced in Bronze if required.
My sculpture is formal in that it does not represent anything external to itself. The works are compositions arising from the use of traditional sculptural elements such as mass, plane, line, weight and space.
I have no preconceived idea of what a sculpture will look like, it is arrived at through a process of trial and error using clay or wax.
I continually put clay on and off until I find ideas which I can blend into a visual whole. This is a totally intuitive process, and a process that is in informed by many years of working in this way. Ideas arrive and then are discarded until I feel that a certain combination of ideas have some sort of unity. Nothing is seen in the conscious mind and then executed.
I strive to make pieces that have no front, back or sides, where all views are equally interesting. For me a sculpture needs to be more than a collection of views, but to have a feeling of unity in space, a sort of inner logic, if this is achieved, the questions of viewing angles does not arise.
Once the form is arrived at in clay it has to be transferred to a more permanent material, usually plaster, which allows for further refinement before being carved in stone or cast in another material – usually either marble or bronze.
Sculptures by neil ferber
Credentials
Exhibitions
yes
Neil Ferber`s father was a child refugee from Germany in the 1930s, who remained in England after the war and married an Englishwoman. Neil was born in Wales and educated in Cardiff. He became interested in art while still at school, making models and objects in a shed at the bottom of his parents` garden. He went to Bulmershe College, Reading where he studied sculpture under Dennis Harland and Alf Parks.
Reclusive and individualist Neil has exhibited only occasionally. He has always avoided following fashionable or commercial trends in art, believing in the traditional values of fine art techniques. Through a period of many varying styles and trends, Neil has consistently worked in an abstract mode, modelling in clay or wax and casting sculptures in a variety of modern materials, experimenting with different textures and finishes. His work is architectural, constantly exploring the relationships of mass and space. The main influences throughout his career have been European - looking towards Brancusi and Eduardo Chillida.
In 2005 Neil was invited to establish a studio in Peralta, Tuscany, as sculptor in residence. Peralta is a small medieval hamlet restored by the Italian Sculptor Fiore de Henriquez. Neil worked there for 6 years before moving to the nearby town of Pietrasanta, the Italian ‘citta d’arte’, close to the Carrara marble quarries. The town has had a history of sculpture-making since Roman times and is famous for being the place where Michaelangelo came to work on ‘David’. It is the perfect place for a sculptor to work and take advantage of the many studios and foundries that still flourish.
Giambologna, Picasso, Eduardo Chilida
