 
Cling film, moisturising cream, sellotape 15.75 x 11.75 inches Courtesy of the artist and Mary Mary, Glasgow
Curator and critic Michelle Cotton describes Karla Black's work as encoded with subjective experience, juxtaposing sculpture that may at first glance resemble the residue of absent-minded play with harder supportive elements: a plinth, a frame, a stage. Dough or dirt may be carefully worked into a formless beauty, paper soaked and softened to become a delicate membrane. Conscious of a parent generation including both feminist performance and abstract expressionism, Black's sculptures evidence a physical act of engagement with material. Painterly matter may sit on glass or stained and varnished wood, or a series of sculptures may be placed or titled to assume a precarious collective status, asserting the independence of the object from the creative act. Black's project attempts to impart something that exists between the artwork and its encounters.   |
