Karla Black (born 1972) is a Scottish sculptor who creates abstract three-dimensional artworks that explore the physicality of materials as a way of understanding and communicating the world around us. In 2011, Black was nominated for the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

and also represented Scotland at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the

Kestnergesellschaft Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in Hanover, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. Its founders included the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948). The association blossomed under the management of and , ...

in Hanover, Germany; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; the

Gemeentemuseum The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I ...

, The Hague; the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

; and the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow,

Modern Art Oxford Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...

and Kunsthalle Nurnberg, Germany. Black represented Scotland at the 54th

in 2011.

Early life and education

Black was born 1972 in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire and studied Sculpture at The Glasgow School of Art from 1995 to 1999. From there, Black gained an MPhil in Art in Organisational Contexts from the year 1999 to 2000, as well as an MFA in fine arts from 2002 to 2004.

Artistic style

Black uses mostly traditional art-making materials such as plaster, paint, paper and chalk in her work, along with a small amount of substances such as cosmetics and toiletries. Her sculptures are either 'almost' or 'only just' objects and skirt the mediums of sculpture, painting, performance art and installation, often juxtaposing large scale with a fragility of form. She utilises and plays with the physical properties of a wide array of materials, which she seeks to use in an aesthetically pleasing, yet raw and unformed way. Although Black identifies as a sculptor, her use of everyday matter mixed with traditional art materials works to expand the parameters of sculpture. According to Black, her works exist and operate as "almost painting, almost installation, almost performance art." Black cites the influence of psychoanalytical theory on her work: she has a particular interest in the writings of

Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested t ...

(1882–1960) who pioneered early developments in child psychology. Black has said: "The sculptures are rooted in Psychoanalysis and Feminism; in theories about the violent and sexual underpinnings of both individual mental mess, as in neuroses and psychosis, and the formlessness of specific points in art history, i.e. German and Abstract Expressionism, Viennese Actionism, Land Art, Anti-form and Feminist Performance." In one of Black's pieces entitled "Made to Wait" (2009), a cellophane sheet is seen floating as an invisible screen with a band of paint and other cosmetic products smeared over it, covering its lower half. According to the Guggenheim, this piece is "elusive and stable" while "the work is grounded in its materiality as a physical experience and resists any metaphorical or symbolic meaning." Blacks work is in the collections of the

Arts Council Collection The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

London, the

, the

David Roberts Art Foundation The Roberts Institute of Art, formerly operating as David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF), is a non-profit contemporary arts organisation based in London. It commissions pioneering performance art, collaborates with national partners on exhibitions ...

, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to th ...

, the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, the Southbank Centre, and the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Publications

* *. *Briony Fer, ''Karla Black – Brains Are Really Everything'', Scotland + Venice 2011, 4 June – 27 November 2011, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh *Susanne Figner and Barry Schwabsky, ''Karla Black'', Walther Konig, Koln, 2014. *Kate Kraczon, ''Karla Black: Practically in Shadow,'' Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2015. *''Karla Black & Kishio Suga: A New Order'', National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Black, Karla 1972 births Living people 21st-century British women artists Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art People from Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire Scottish contemporary artists Scottish sculptors Scottish women sculptors