MEG WEBSTER

Since the 1980s, Webster has worked with natural materials, including soil, moss, branches, wax, and salt, to create simple, geometric forms that engage the formal vocabulary of Minimalism while foregrounding human scale and sensorial experience. Webster’s practice is guided by her long-standing commitment to the natural world, bringing organic matter into direct dialogue with sculptural form.

In Thicket (2026), Webster layers plant cuttings into a dense, spiraling structure of leafy branches, berries, and flowering buds. The spiral opens wide enough to allow the viewer inside, creating an immersive, enveloping space. As in many of Webster’s works, the body becomes an active participant: moving through the installation heightens awareness of physical presence in relation to sculptural form while sharpening sensory perception of the surrounding vegetation. The spiral is a recurring motif in Webster’s practice, seen in earlier works such as Stick Spiral (1986) and Glass Spiral (1990).

Also on view are new works on paper and small-scale sculptures. On square sheets, Webster rubs organic materials–ranging from spices to powdered vegetables and flowers–directly onto the surface, producing monochromatic compositions that center color, texture, and scent. A new, three-part sculptural relief made from beeswax extends this interest in embodied perception, recalling the sensorially rich presence of Wall of Wax (1990), which suffused its surroundings with a sweet honey smell.

Meg Webster (b. 1944, San Francisco, CA) is a sculptor and ecological activist whose practice has long been guided by an environmental impulse to celebrate and preserve the natural world. Her work bridges the conceptual rigor of Land Art and the formal language of Minimalism with the utopian ideals of early garden design and urban landscaping. She currently has long-term installations on view at Hudson River Park, New York (Stonefield, 2010) and Milwaukee Sculpture, Wisconsin (Glass Spiral, 1990). In summer 2026, Webster’s work will be included in THIS LAND: Considering The American Landscape at The Church, Sag Harbor and a group exhibition at Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill. Webster received her MFA from Yale University in 1983 and had a one-person exhibition at Donald Judd’s Spring Street space in New York the same year. Subsequent one-person exhibitions have been held at The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (1984); The Brooklyn Museum, New York (1992); P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York (1998); MoMA P.S.1 (2013); LMCC Art Center at Governors Island, New York (2021); Judd Foundation, New York (2022); and Dia Art Foundation, Beacon (2024–2026). In 2016, she presented her large-scale earthwork Concave Room for Bees at Socrates Sculpture Park, commissioned for the exhibition “LANDMARK,” and in 2017 participated in the two-person exhibition Natura Naturans at Villa Panza in Varese, Italy. Webster lives and works in New York.

Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery.