Karla Black

The expansive sculptures by Karla Black are of an ambiguous, fragile beauty. Delicate pastel shades and foils, light and reflections give them a weightless impression despite their large formats. The works move between installation, painting and performance and ultimately claim to be independent sculptures. The Scottish artist works with materials of daily use and cosmetics, with paint, gypsum powder and transparent tape, with Vaseline, lipstick and nail polish. The texture, "feeling", is crucial to the selection. Black installs her site-specific sculptures herself, works with her hands, rubs, smears, mixes. This direct examination of the material is understood as a means of communication and a means of understanding her surrounding world. For the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt the artist will develop a new spatial sculpture for the publicly accessible rotunda.Karla Black lives and works in Glasgow. In 2011, she represented Scotland at the 54th Venice Biennale and was nominated for the Turner Prize in the same year. Her work has been shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions.