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I had two pieces accepted by the Rugby Open, the exhibition runs until February and has over 250 works, with over 500 entries into the Open.

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Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism,[1] is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as abstractions from, or ontological dependents on, processes. In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory (as argued by Parmenides) or accidental (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world. 

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Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism,[1] is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as abstractions from, or ontological dependents on, processes. In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory (as argued by Parmenides) or accidental (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world. 

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It fell in slow mo like a dying swan and it collapsed like a giraffe trying to walk, eventually I secured it to the wall, I like this form but I would have liked it to stand. I will try again with some thicker supports.

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Balloons, resin and black mica powder. This felt very action painterly in the making, lots of pouring, dripping and sprinkling...

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Balloons, resin and black mica powder. This felt very action painterly in the making, lots of pouring, dripping and sprinkling...

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I was hoping this would form a crust but it was too fragile and didn't hold together when I popped the balloons, I would need a lot more resin and a large bowl or bucket to hold a big chunk of resin to get any kind of cast from them.

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I used this QR code to communicate the install guidance for my sculptures submitted to the Rugby Open, the code leads to a document with photos of the pieces (Above) which helped the curator see what I asked to be assembled. They looked quite happy to see the pictures and understood really well how the work was to be installed, I would definitely use this method again as the info was accessible on the curators own phone immediately and the QR code was simple to make, print and stick to the submission label.

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Does this object have a right to exist? It's hardly there at all, this is my most challenging thing I've made so far, as well as being useless its almost invisible, a pile of plastic, you can't really tell I've formed each of the 9 sections into shape with paint buckets. They look un formed, un made. They could be the wrapping of the paintings in the exhibition, left in the corner. Is it art? I can imagine someone saying. This is the most extreme iteration of the theme, almost a sculpture, almost art, debatable even in my mind whether I should have made this, and what the odds are of me or anyone actually making this. Its minimal and subtle yet quite demanding of the viewer, I think easily over looked...

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Seriously considering adding sound to the works, giving them concealed speakers so that they can "talk/sing" I imagine the kinds of voices or sounds the objects might have. They may speak a cut up language. I am reminded of David Lynchs' characters that speak backwards and a band I used to listen to called the Cocteau Twins, with Elizabeth Fraser who seemed to sing in another worldly language. The surrealists saw language as a barrier, names as problems, similarly to Deleuzian theory, a name stratifies, a language is a tool. This leads me to think my objects should be exhibited with cut up words/sounds?

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Or do I care? I think the answer is no, I don't really. The object is made or un-made and my job seems to end right there. I endure the process of thinking about how to present the object but this is for the sake of viewing, not making and as such is external to the work itself. The objects could last a few seconds, decades or hundreds of years and it would not in my eyes change the work. They could be differently installed each time they are seen, they could be site specific and technically a new work each time they are viewed but that is not the "work". The idea that the value of the material or the technicality in methods, or the potentially archival nature of the work does not concern me either, in the destratifying of the materials and objects, they are seen equally and I simply use materials that are around me and easily obtained (which of course happens to be cheaper materials) and that I am drawn to or I know will "fit" somehow.
Lots of the materials I have used this semester have been donated to me by friends, colleagues and family - a bag of concrete from Sue, a bag of clay also from Sue but she gave it to Evelyn who gave it to me, a massive roll of plastic sheeting from my husband, some tumble dryer pipe and a part from a washing machine from Clint in yr two, plastic cups left over from a party.

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I wanted to write this down while fresh in my mind, I had a good tutorial this afternoon with Jo, giving me loads to think about in terms of resolving the works and potentially developing them into stand alone objects. Jo started to make me think of the options I have in terms of how to best exhibit the ideas I have already started to develop - we talked about potentially creating a timber framework to support the objects, metal or timber tripod 'legs' and the possibility of filling horizontal space such as the floor or ceiling. This week I am going to try a couple of these options - a simple tripod made with timber or acrylic legs? And a floor piece made with plastic. I am still keen on using some construction sounds placed inside the objects and I will look into this aswell.

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Andre Breton wrote the Manifesto of Surrealism partly using what he called Automatic writing, this reminded me of the cut-up method Deleuze and Guattari used in A Thousand Plateaus. Breton also wrote a book with Philippe Soupault called The Magnetic Fields (Les Champs Magnetiques) which introduces the idea of automatic writing. This book particularly remind me of A Thousand Plateaus, it's impossible to tell which author had written what in both cases being cut-up and re-assembled. In the Manifesto of Surrealism he defines Surrealism as 'pure psychic automatism' which can be achieved through automatic and cut-up writing. 

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Andre Breton wrote the Manifesto of Surrealism partly using what he called Automatic writing, this reminded me of the cut-up method Deleuze and Guattari used in A Thousand Plateaus. Breton also wrote a book with Philippe Soupault called The Magnetic Fields (Les Champs Magnetiques) which introduces the idea of automatic writing. This book particularly remind me of A Thousand Plateaus, it's impossible to tell which author had written what in both cases being cut-up and re-assembled. In the Manifesto of Surrealism he defines Surrealism as 'pure psychic automatism' which can be achieved through automatic and cut-up writing. 

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"...if you catch an idea that you love, it is a beautiful, beautiful day. These small ideas that one catches are fragments, the artistic process constitutes on building on these fragments and arranging them so that they form the bigger picture." - David Lynch (Faroutmagazine.co.uk, 2020) 

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"...if you catch an idea that you love, it is a beautiful, beautiful day. These small ideas that one catches are fragments, the artistic process constitutes on building on these fragments and arranging them so that they form the bigger picture." - David Lynch (Faroutmagazine.co.uk, 2020) 

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This week, most of the fragments I had made in polystyrene were broken, either deliberately dropped or accidentally fell. I re-arranged them on the studio wall, I see that they are becoming something a little more substantial here, slowly building up scale...?

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This week, most of the fragments I had made in polystyrene were broken, either deliberately dropped or accidentally fell. I re-arranged them on the studio wall, I see that they are becoming something a little more substantial here, slowly building up scale...?

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These two pieces were submitted and accepted to the Rugby Open, I titled them Abstract Machine and Assemblage. Im excited to attend the opening and awards ceremony on Friday evening. The judges were from the Tate and Scottish National Gallery and From the RA so Im really pleased my work was seen by them. 

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These two pieces were submitted and accepted to the Rugby Open, I titled them Abstract Machine and Assemblage. Im excited to attend the opening and awards ceremony on Friday evening. The judges were from the Tate and Scottish National Gallery and From the RA so Im really pleased my work was seen by them. 

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William S Burroughs Cut-Ups - Poetry is for Everyone

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William S Burroughs Cut-Ups - Poetry is for Everyone

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"Cut-ups are for everyone. Anybody can make cut-ups. It is experimental in the sense of being something to do. Right here write now. Not something to talk and argue about. Greek philosophers assumed logically that an object twice as heavy as another object would fall twice as fast. It did not occur to them to push the two objects off the table and see how they fall. Shakespeare Rimbaud live in their words. Cut the word lines and you will hear their voices. Cut- ups often come through as code messages with special meaning for the cutter. Table tapping? Perhaps. Certainly an improvement on the usual deplorable performances of contacted poets through a medium. Rimbaud announces himself, to be followed by some excruciatingly bad poetry. Cut Rimbaud's words and you are assured of good poetry at least if not personal appearance.

"All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else? Use of scissors renders the process explicit and subject to extension and variation. Clear classical prose can be composed entirely of rearranged cut-ups. Cutting and rearranging a page of written words introduces a new dimension into writing enabling the writer to turn images in cinematic variation. Images shift sense under the scissors smell images to sound sight to sound to kinesthetic. This is where Rimbaud was going with his color of vowels. And his "systematic derangement of the senses." The place of mescaline hallucination: seeing colors tasting sounds smelling forms.

"The cut-ups can be applied to other fields than writing. Dr Neumann in his Theory of Games and Economic behavior introduces the cut-up method of random action into game and military strategy: assume that the worst has happened and act accordingly. If your strategy is at some point determined . . . by random factor your opponent will gain no advantage from knowing your strategy since he cannot predict the move. The cut-up method could be used to advantage in processing scientific data. How many discoveries have been made by accident? We cannot produce accidents to order. The cut-ups could add new dimension to films. Cut gambling scene in with a thousand gambling scenes all times and places. Cut back. Cut streets of the world. Cut and rearrange the word and image in films. There is no reason to accept a second-rate product when you can have the best. And the best is there for all. Poetry is for everyone . . ."

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The abstract expressionists were mostly based in New York City, and also became known as the New York school. The name evokes their aim to make art that while abstract was also expressive or emotional in its effect. They were inspired by the surrealist idea that art should come from the unconscious mind, and by the automatism of artist Joan Miró.

TYPES OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Within abstract expressionism were two broad groupings: the so-called action painters, who attacked their canvases with expressive brush strokes; and the colour field painters who filled their canvases with large areas of a single colour.

The action painters were led by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, who worked in a spontaneous improvisatory manner often using large brushes to make sweeping gestural marks. Pollock famously placed his canvas on the ground and danced around it pouring paint from the can or trailing it from the brush or a stick. In this way the action painters directly placed their inner impulses onto the canvas.

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This morning I assisted with the first years tutorials which I really enjoyed, I spoke to several students about their projects - Copy/Mutate and Space/Place which I remember doing myself. They seemed engaged and happy to speak to me about their work, I tried to help in places where they seemed 'stuck' and gave artist references where I thought appropriate:

Ryan- Cornelia Parker's Psychobarn. Ryan was telling me about living in Warwick and his love of historical places and costume. We chatted about how the places and fashion are modernised over time and some depictions are maybe not historically accurate, for example he mentioned Lord of The Rings TV show.

Noah - Mies Van De Roe, Brutalist Architecture and Moral Meyerscough, Hertford St. Noahs sketches and 'selfie' project looked very architectural to me, his images have hard brutal edges, we spoke about living in the City and how he could research the brutal architecture for development in screen printing perhaps.

Lute - Was working on her place as Weatherspoons, I recommended that she look at last years' turner prize winners, Array and their pub installation. I recommended that she look into performance and print as possible uses of tech.

Ann - I showed Ann my process and padlet as she was voicing a concern that she was a bit stressed, she is working at speed and aware that the work needs to be documented. I showed her my sketchbook and explained how this and the padlet work for me and keep me on track. Also how easy it makes life at submission time!

Tamida- I noticed a theme of vistas in architecture in Tamida's work, we talked about laser cutting and working on cut outs in the sketchbook, I also recommended looking at Snarkitecture (Daniel Arsham) as they look further at the idea of breaking through walls to create vistas.

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Alchemical process seems important to my work, the transformation of matter, trash into value, body de-stratified, look to point to transmutation. Alchemy was practiced as a forerunner to modern philosophy and chemistry. Concerned with the transmutation of base metals into gold, the creation of an elixir of immortality, the concept of creating the philosophers stone and the perfection of the human body and soul which was achieved through the alchemical practice, known as the Magnum Opus (great work)

"Alchemy as understood by many is never about material transmutation but rather about spiritual and psychic transformation."

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My process is still very experimental and directly in play with the materials, its a formless process of abstraction with no real agenda. I allow the reflection after I have made the work and see themes naturally occurring in the objects I make. Although it can look chaotic, it's a very robust system of trial and error, feeling my way to a conclusion through the natural will of the material, in this way it is an agreement of sorts between me and matter, a collaboration with the nature of the material and its transformational qualities.

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Cornelia Parker, Neither from nor Towards, 1992

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Cornelia Parker, Neither from nor Towards, 1992

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Some of my favourite exhibits from my visit to the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre - Radical Landscapes 

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Some of my favourite exhibits from my visit to the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre - Radical Landscapes 

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during my first group crit, someone mentioned to me that my work could be seen as "morbid", others have described the work to look "destructive" I think this could be because of the lack of colour in my work. I hope to refine an effective monochromatic or clear colour palette and I am doing that quite deliberately at this point, choosing materials now for their transformational and formless qualities. One of the reasons I didn't like my hessian sack and expanding foam was because the colours didn't fit with the formless/opposing colours of the rest of the objects.
The use of black is important in referring to the Deleuzian double articulation in the creation of an idea. Directly the moment of creation and destruction as the same moment. Karla Black talks of this primitive moment in play where an idea is formed, the moment before an idea is formed. Sarah Sze also talks about the object that is in construction or equally it could be in de-construction, these ideas could look the same. Deleuze speaks of a pincer movement where matter is constantly pulled together and broken apart again in a cycle of constant becoming. I want to express this dynamic tension in the work. The only colour I am considering is Silver metal, which will come from using metals in the work. This will add a more modern and transformational quality and will hint of alchemy I hope. The lack of colour seems to make people feel uneasy somehow yet we have had many mono chromatic works in photography, film, ceramics, fashion, painting and printing, graffiti and graphic design, - all to good effect. Perhaps this is another disobedience of beauty on my part: in an artificially colour saturated world where people like Pantone and Anish Kapoor can own colours?? Where there is a hierarchy even of colour my instinct is to be very careful with colour and not to be distracted by its many interpretations.

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I think this has potential to work but Im not sure if this is too implicit/literal and not abstracted enough for me. I like working with cabling and tubing and it certainly implies bodily systems or bio machinery or diagram of some kind, the artificial material hints at transformation but its not quite there yet. Sometimes I refer to installation works as feeling a bit fussy or over complicated, its a personal view I have of sculpture that I appreciate simple, effective and subtle forms. I think this could get too fussy for me, I would need to further simplify the pieces to get them to talk to each other more effectively for me to be happy with it. I think at scale these pieces could start to look more architectural and industrial and could be interesting. 

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I think this has potential to work but Im not sure if this is too implicit/literal and not abstracted enough for me. I like working with cabling and tubing and it certainly implies bodily systems or bio machinery or diagram of some kind, the artificial material hints at transformation but its not quite there yet. Sometimes I refer to installation works as feeling a bit fussy or over complicated, its a personal view I have of sculpture that I appreciate simple, effective and subtle forms. I think this could get too fussy for me, I would need to further simplify the pieces to get them to talk to each other more effectively for me to be happy with it. I think at scale these pieces could start to look more architectural and industrial and could be interesting. 

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(Plastic tubing, hessian builders sack, expanding foam, Polystyrene, paper, glue, charcoal)

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Im fascinated by the idea of the agreeable art object or the agreeable body. Wilke draws on female anatomy questioning the idea of being agreeable, is it tactile? Is it purely visual? Is it about obedience? I think about this when I make my work, it does not have to be agreeable to others for me, beauty is a thing that I haven't prioritised in my work, I sometimes stumble across things I think are beautiful or visually appealing but I don't make beautiful objects. I see visually interesting and traditionally beautiful or erotically beautiful as quite different things. I purposely allow the material to dictate its own potential of transformation and beauty of its own kind. This is a kind of disobedience to me, a kind of formlessness. Im not interested in that kind of formality in my work, although formal interpretation seems difficult to avoid. 

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Im fascinated by the idea of the agreeable art object or the agreeable body. Wilke draws on female anatomy questioning the idea of being agreeable, is it tactile? Is it purely visual? Is it about obedience? I think about this when I make my work, it does not have to be agreeable to others for me, beauty is a thing that I haven't prioritised in my work, I sometimes stumble across things I think are beautiful or visually appealing but I don't make beautiful objects. I see visually interesting and traditionally beautiful or erotically beautiful as quite different things. I purposely allow the material to dictate its own potential of transformation and beauty of its own kind. This is a kind of disobedience to me, a kind of formlessness. Im not interested in that kind of formality in my work, although formal interpretation seems difficult to avoid. 

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I would like to experiment further with these larger pieces, they remind me of Karla Blacks work a little, I used her soaking and drying process that she forms paper with to make a curve in the polystyrene sheet, I then covered it in jesmonite and plaster, as inspired by Phylida Barlow. I preferred the cover the plaster gave and it was easier to apply when I waited for it to set into a thick consistency that I was able to smooth onto the polystyrene with my hands. The curve then holds nicely. I'd like to make more of these sections to potentially assemble into a larger form or to hang/place randomly in a space?

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I would like to experiment further with these larger pieces, they remind me of Karla Blacks work a little, I used her soaking and drying process that she forms paper with to make a curve in the polystyrene sheet, I then covered it in jesmonite and plaster, as inspired by Phylida Barlow. I preferred the cover the plaster gave and it was easier to apply when I waited for it to set into a thick consistency that I was able to smooth onto the polystyrene with my hands. The curve then holds nicely. I'd like to make more of these sections to potentially assemble into a larger form or to hang/place randomly in a space?

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(Polystyrene, plaster, jesmonite, charcoal)

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Photographed in the toilets in Foleshill Rd

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Photographed in the toilets in Foleshill Rd

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Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus p.141

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Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus p.141

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The abstract machine in itself is destratified, deterritorialized; it has no form of its own (much less substance) and makes no distinction within itself between content and expression, even though outside itself it presides over that distinction and distributes it in strata, domains, territories. An abstract machine in itself is not physical or corporeal, any more than it is semiotic; it is diagrammatic (it knows nothing of the distinction between the artificial and the natural either). It operates by matter, not by substance; by function, not by form. Substances and forms are of expression “or” content. But functions are not yet “semiotically” formed, and matters are not yet “physically” formed. The abstract machine is pure Matter-Function – a diagram independent of the forms and substances, expressions and contents it will distribute.

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“Hiller became critical of academic anthropology; she did not want her research to be part of the "objectification of the contrariness of lived events [that was] destined to become another complicit thread woven into the fabric of 'evidence' that would help anthropology become a science".

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“As described by Arthur Conan Doyle….he explained the earth – the DE-territorialised, the glacial, the giant molecule – is a body without organs. This body without organs is permeated by unformed, unstable matters, by flows in all directions, by free intensities or nomadic singularities, by mad or transitory particles, that, however, was not the question at hand. For there simultaneously occurs upon the earth a very important, inevitable phenomenon that is beneficial in many respects and unfortunate in many others: Stratification. Strata are layers, belts. They consist of giving form to matters, of imprisoning singularities into systems of resonance and redundancy, of producing upon the body of the earth molecules large and small and organising them back into molar aggregates. Strata are like acts of capture, they are like black holes or occlusions striving to seize whatever comes within their reach.”Deleuze/Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

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"She is interested in ideas of play and early childhood learning as well as the primitive, creative moment when art comes into being and draws on a range of artistic traditions from expressionist painting to land art, performance and formalism. Everyday matter such as soap, cotton wool and toothpaste are explored alongside traditional art materials including plaster, pigment and paint, expanding the limits of what sculpture can be. Her work operates in an area of uncertainty, existing in a place she refers to as, ‘almost painting, almost installation, almost performance art.’ (quoted in Kraczon, p.12)".

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Scottish National Gallery

The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL

73 & 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR

1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD

Karla Black is a Scottish artist who creates abstract, immersive sculptures that explore physical experience as a way of communicating and understanding the world around us. She was born 1972 in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire and studied Sculpture at The Glasgow School of Art from 1995 to 1999. Black gained an MPhil in Art in Organisational Contexts from 1999-2000 and an MFA in 2002-4.

She is interested in ideas of play and early childhood learning as well as the primitive, creative moment when art comes into being and draws on a range of artistic traditions from expressionist painting to land art, performance and formalism. Everyday matter such as soap, cotton wool and toothpaste are explored alongside traditional art materials including plaster, pigment and paint, expanding the limits of what sculpture can be. Her work operates in an area of uncertainty, existing in a place she refers to as, 'almost painting, almost installation, almost performance art.' (quoted in Kraczon, p.12).

Usually made in response to the space where they will be shown, her works have ranged from delicate cellophane, paper and polythene hanging pieces suspended with ribbon or tape to large-scale floor-based environments made from plaster, chalk powder and soil. Her sculptures are often full of contradictions; they command an entire gallery space yet hover on the brink of collapse, and combine a fascination in raw, physical materials with an interest in psychoanalysis and language.

Solo exhibitions have been staged at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2013), the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2012), and the Migros Museum, Zurich (2009), among others. Her works are held within many prestigious collections including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, The Hammer Museum, LA, and Tate. In 2011 she represented Scotland at the 54th Venice Biennale, and she was nominated for the Turner Prize in the same year. In 2014 she was included in ' GENERATION: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland '. Black currently lives and works in Glasgow.

Karla Black | Materials

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Materials

Karla Black skillfully draws out and plays with the physical properties of wide ranging materials. They vary from household substances like soap, makeup, cotton wool and toothpaste, to traditional art supplies including plaster, powder, pigment, paper, polythene and cellophane. Although many of her materials may serve as a reminder of the intimate, daily acts that are commonly associated with women, such as applying make-up, her concern is simply with the physical merits of matter: its tactile, aesthetic appeal, rather than its cultural connotations.

One of the major influences on Black's use of materials is Land Art from the 1960s and 1970s, including work by Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer. She says, 'The fact that the experience of making is allowed to be seen within the finished work of Land Art, its often temporary nature, its site specificity and its scale, as well as the materials themselves, are all things that stay in my mind.' (quoted in Black, p.176).

Her relationship with materials is intuitive and she often explores their less conventional properties in experimental ways, inviting us to understand them in a new way. Conflicting surfaces from matt, shiny, wet and dry come together in a range of formed and formless shapes. She has said, 'I want the work to be attractive, but also for the materials to remain as raw and unformed as possible.' (quoted in Black, p.176). Plaster is left as a fine powder spread across the floor, chalk crushed into a pigment and smeared across surfaces and paint mixed with petroleum jelly or body lotion to stop it drying out.

In 2011 Black was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, installing two artworks into Gatehead's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art - Doesn't Care in Words and More of the Day, 2011. The huge, sprawling installation comprised enormous sheets of crumpled sugar paper and paint splattered cellophane, combined with pastel coloured powders made from crushed bath bombs. This sensory, all-encompassing work straddled between an overpowering strength of scale and a fragility of form, as if it was about to collapse in on itself.

Action/Trace

The unconscious gesture is an important element of Karla Black's practice. Although she has never described herself as a performance artist, her sculptures are full of the traces of her actions. Her forms are twisted, draped, crushed, stacked and crumpled to create sensory, visceral environments. The painterly marks she makes across surfaces from transparent cellophane and polythene to crumpled, matt sugar paper bear the tracks of her own hand, be it through splashing, staining, rubbing or rolling. The staging of her work in response to the space it is shown is a physical and demanding process, during which she creates a careful balance between raw, loose mark making and a considered sense of form. Once completed, her sculptures have an impromptu and precarious nature as if caught mid-action.

Black's abstraction reveals numerous art historical references, including the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and feminist performance artists like Carolee Schneemann and Bobby Baker. She tempers these interests with an organised, formalist approach to aesthetic decision making, creating defined borders for her expressionism. Writer Briony Fer says, 'It is as if strenuous actions have left something that looks entirely effortless - as if it has simply appeared in the gallery...' (quoted in Fer).

In Black's large sculpture Practically in Shadow, 2013, created for the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, she created a multi-part work including her largest hanging polythene object to date. Thin sheets of pale pink and blue polythene were suspended from the ceiling in a series of hanging and knotted drapes, while beneath them a sea of powdered plaster and paint mixed with bath bombs was spread across the floor, with clean edges suggesting the hard boundaries of colour field painting and Minimalism. In one corner, a layered tower of compressed powder was left to gradually crumble throughout the exhibition run, leaving behind the traces of its own slow action. Story of a Sensible Length, 2014 was created for 'GENERATION: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland', in which similar hues of polythene sheets were hung from the ceiling, bound together with loose knots to create a fragile structure seemingly caught in mid-air.

Space

Space plays an integral role in both the production and understanding of Karla Black's sculptures. Her large scale, site-specific sculptures respond to the light and architecture of the spaces they are shown, with a considered sense of play. Her expansive approach allows her to explore the spaces she inhabits fully, spreading large rectangles or stacks across the floor, or working from the ceiling down with hanging shapes and forms. The range of surfaces she employs encourage new ways of looking at the spaces they are in, with transparent polythene forming thin veils to look through, suspended opaque paper forms creating holes or windows and shiny cellophane refracting the light. Similarly, her floor based sculptures that cover large areas encourage visitors to navigate the gallery space in a new way.

This expansive approach to space encourages the bleeding of one sculpture into another, as writer Briony Fer explains, 'In Black's work... it is sometimes hard to tell where one work ends and another begins. Yet they are separate works and it is that 'leakage' or spread - vertically or horizontally - that orientates us as spectators.' (quoted in Fer). This approach can be seen in Black's solo exhibition in the 15th century Palazzo Pisani in Venice, where she represented Scotland at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The display included Brains are Really Everything, At Fault, Walk Away from Gilded Rooms, At Base, Don't Depend, Forgetting Isn't Trying, 2011. These works brought together huge bundles of sugar paper chalked over with pastel shades or sprayed with fake tan and eyeshadow stained balsa wood. In another series of rooms the floors were scattered with soil, on top of which Black placed oversized cubes of soap from the toiletries company Lush, creating a fully immersive, sensory experience.

A video walkthrough of Karla Black's exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2011

Karla Black's a solo presentation at the 54th International Art Exhibition -- la Biennale di Venezia, the world's largest and most prestigious showcase for contemporary visual arts. The exhibition was curated by The Fruitmarket Gallery and is presented, as in 2009, at Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina) until 27 November 2011.

Meaning

Karla Black's artistic practice is primarily driven by an exploration into the abstract qualities of materials and form, which she prioritises over language as a way of understanding our place in the world. She says, 'The primary function of the work is aesthetic, formal and material. What comes first is colour and form, composition and scale and then, a very firm and separate second, comes language.'(quoted in Black, p.178).

Black's abstract approach to materials draws from the psychoanalytical approach developed by Melanie Klein, who encouraged a 'play technique' for children in place of language to analyse a patient's direct experience with the physical, material world. The floor thereby became an important site for creative acts, as is often the case with young children. Black has a similar interest in horizontality, with many of her artworks covering large expanses of ground. In Principles of Admitting, 2009, for example, Black almost covers the gallery floor with a large expanse of blue plaster powder and an area of crushed brown sugar paper.

Allusions to the soft geometry and grids of artists including Agnes Martin and Jasper Johns can be found in Black's sculptures, including Principles of Admitting. This reinforces her anti-narrative, formalist stance - she says, 'There is no image, no metaphor.'( Karla Black quoted in Higgins). In spite of this, Black chooses intentionally evocative or ambiguous titles for her artworks that draw on a personal form of psychoanalysis, as Black explains, 'I just use my brain to think of the titles, no sources as such, although there must be sources in there. I think "What is this thing?" "What have you done?" "What are the conditions from which it came?"' (Karla Black quoted in Figner and Schwabsky, p.13).

Obscure titles include Nature Equals Meaning Minus Choice, 2011, and Contact Isn't Lost, 2008, artworks which highlight her belief that language occupies a secondary role to the work itself. The ambiguous title of her sculpture, There Can Be No Arguments, 2010 is a seemingly definitive statement that invites us to consider its relationship to the materials comprising the work - in this case baby pink plaster powder clinging to the surface of a large polythene sheet. The work has a commanding authority, despite the apparent fragility of its materials.

References

Karla Black, Its Proof That Counts, exhibition catalogue for Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, November 14, 2009-February 14, 2010.

Charlotte Higgins, Karla Black in conversation with Charlotte Higgins, in Karla Black at the Venice Biennale: 'Don't Call my Art Feminine', The Guardian, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jun/01/karla-black-at-venice-biennale, accessed 3 November 2016.

Briony Fer, Karla Black - Brains Are Really Everything, Scotland + Venice 2011, 4 June - 27 November 2011, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Susanne Figner and Barry Shwabsky, Karla Black in conversation with Barry Shwabsky, in Karla Black, Walther Konig, Koln, 2014.

Kate Kraczon, Black in Practically in Shadow, exhibition catalogue for Institute of Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2015.

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Scottish National Gallery The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL 73 & 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD Karla Black is a Scottish artist who creates abstract, immersive sculptures that explore physical experience as a way of communicating and understanding the world around us.

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"All of this stuff that we're standing on is dry mud, its mud. And mud, mud - its all mud! Dig it! It's mud. Mud, I'm adding the mud. I'm breaking the land, I am breaking down the land!  The land. I am grabbing the land. (swoosh) I am".

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"When it jiggles, that means there's water under, and all that we're stepping on right now is activated quick-sand. When you do this it activates the quick-sand bit and you get quick-sand, I'm making quick-sand!"

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Vibrant Matter
a political ecology of things 2010
the force of things p.11

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"What struck (Vernadsky) most was that the material of the Earths crust has been packaged into myriad moving beings whose reproduction and growth build and break down matter on a global scale. People, for example, redistribute and concentrate oxygen...and other elements of Earths crust into two-legged, upright forms that have an amazing propensity to wander across, dig into and in countless other ways alter Earths surface. We are walking talking minerals."

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Material thus has three principle characteristics: it is molecularized matter: it has a relation to forces to be harnessed: and is defined by the operations of consistency applied to it. Finally it is clear that the relation to the earth and the people has changed, and is no longer of the romantic type. The earth is now at its most deterritorialized: not only in a point in a galaxy, but one galaxy among others. The people is now at its most molecularised: a molecular population, people of oscillators as so many forces of interaction. The artist discards romantic figures, relinquishes both the forces of the earth and those of the people. The established powers have occupied the earth, they have built peoples organisations. The mass media, the great peoples organisations of party or union type are machines for reproduction, fuzzification machines that effectively scramble the terrestrial forces of the people. The established powers have placed us in the situation of a combat at once atomic and cosmic, galactic.

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A Thousand Plateaus 1988
1837:Of the Refrain p.401