KARLA BLACK AT THE 54TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION, VENICE

Glasgow-based artist Karla Black presented at the Venice Biennale her new abstract compositions.

Text by Anna Battista

Karla Black’s abstract world is made of a variety of materials, not all of them coming from your traditional art shop. In her new work, curated by Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery and currently showcased during the Venice Biennale at the Scottish Pavilion in Palazzo Pisani, the artist created a series of compositions using mud, spray paint, sugar paper, eyeshadow, body paint, lipstick, nail varnish, kids’ chalks, powder paint and plaster, polythene, cellophane, soap and bath balls.

Black usually picks her materials – that at times also include medicines and cleaning products – according to their textures and colours, considering the joy of physically interacting with them as a fundamental point of her work.

The artist also juxtaposes light and airy knotted pieces of transparent materials such as cellophane (for example the installation “Blame Wasn’t Really There” in which cellophane is transformed into a translucent veil) with more solid elements such as soap, sterilised topsoil and compost (the piece “Brains Are Really Everything”) that are piled in cake-like organic towers or they are layered and spilled on the floor of the 15th century Venetian palazzo.

Baby blue, soft pink, light yellow and mint green prevail hinting maybe at a return to infantile creativity and inspiring the visitors to go back to childhood memories, but the installations aren’t only visual: upon entering the rooms visitors feel as if they were stepping upon the doorstep of a Lush cosmetics shop (Lush is indeed among the sponsors of this installation).

This reference to cosmetics (Black previously used in her work eyeshadow, pink face powder, concealers and Vaseline) is considered by critics as a reference to femininity, though it’s actually prompted more by her impetus towards physicality and matter, two topics that also inspired Black her recent insterest in scientific and quantum theories.

Karla Black’s installation is at Palazzo Pisani, Calle de le Erbe 6103, Cannaregio, Venice, until 27th November 2011