Karla Black

Fruitmarket Segments

Karla Black in conversation with Fiona Bradley, Director of Fruitmarket, from September 2021. This event accompanied Karla’s 2021 exhibition, sculptures (2001–2021) details for a retrospective.

Scottish artist Karla Black makes sculptures that begin with a desire to do something. To experiment with certain materials, certain colours. In turn, the sculptures she makes do something: they hang, heap, spread, reach, spill, stand, hover. The materials Karla uses include cosmetics, over-the-counter medicines, cleaning products and packaging as well as the paint, paper and plaster more usually found in fine art. She uses them because she likes them, and wants to see what they can do. She keeps her materials as raw as possible, so that the energy they embody is in the present or the future rather than the past.

Details on Karla’s show can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.

The book which accompanied the show is can be ordered online.

A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel.

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