Karla Black

15 April - 19 May 2006

Mary Mary is proud to present a solo show by Karla Black, her second at the gallery since 2004. Following recent exhibitions at Outpost Gallery, Norwich and Broadway 1602, New York and a group show at Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, Black will create a group of new sculptural works within the gallery.

Karla Black’s works act as physical explorations into thinking, feeling, communicating and relating, representing an ongoing learning, or search for understanding, through material experience rather than language. The finished works have a looseness and messiness that is allowed to exist within an overall attempt at simplicity, purity, cleanness or smoothness. The sculptures themselves are rooted in Psychoanalysis and Feminism; in theories about violent and sexual underpinnings of both individual mental neuroses and psychosis, and the formlessness of specific points in art history, including German and Abstract Expressionism, Viennese Actionism, Land Art and Feminist Performance. While nearly being performances, installations or paintings, the works retain a large amount of the autonomy of modernist sculpture.

This exhibition formed part of the Glasgow International Visual Arts Festival, 19 April – 1 May 2006

Karla Black, Installation view, Mary Mary, April 2006

Karla Black, Installation view, Mary Mary, April 2006

Karla Black
Opportunities For Girls (detail) 2006
Sugar paper, ribbon, chalk, plaster, apint, hair gel, nail varnish, glass
Dimensions Variable

Karla Black
Early Equals Deep 2006
Diprobase cream, polythene bag, toilet paper, kitchen paper, towel, sugar paper, chalk, plaster, petroleum jelly, glass, face powder, concealer stick, nail varnish
500 x 650 cms / 196 7/8 x 255 7/8 ins

Karla Black
Early Equals Deep (detail) 2006
Diprobase cream, polythene bag, toilet paper, kitchen paper, towel, sugar paper, chalk, plaster, petroleum jelly, glass, face powder, concealer stick, nail varnish
500 x 650 cms / 196 7/8 x 255 7/8 ins