Karla Black

Karla Black 

Karla Black is a Scottish artist based in Glasgow, she studied at GSA in 1995 to 1999.  Influenced by Land Art, including work by Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.

Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty (1970)

Michael Heizer North, East, South, West (1967/2002)

At Fault, 2011.

This is the work she made for the Venice Biennale back in 2011. The work took up the whole top floor of the Venetian Palazzo Pisani, which is a riverside hotel.  The work looks like a mess, that's been painted with soft pinks, yellows and blues. The pieces flow between rooms as a collection, varying from wall and floor pieces to free standing work. There's not a direct route to walk round her work, meaning that you have to walk between the pieces. I think that the layout and display of a piece can be just as important as the work itself. Contemporary art can be something as simple as a cup, or in Karla Black's work a bath bomb but without being shown in the right places it could just be seen as a bath bomb. 

Materials that she uses in her work are all things that you could find in our own homes, which I think makes her work stand out more from some of the other artists that are using unconventional materials. Looking at her work and being able to identify what it is you're looking at is something that appeals to me about what she does. In her work you can see soap, cotton wool, toothpaste, plaster, powder, pigment, paper, polythene, cellophane, eye shadows and bath bombs.

The colours she uses in her work are quite soft and gentle which makes people say that her work is very girly. I found it interesting how by using light soft colours people see the work as feminine.