Karla Black was born in Alexandria, Scotland, in 1972. She lives and works in Glasgow.

Black creates abstract sculptures using a combination of everyday materials including dust, soap, gels and filler, along with more traditional media such as plaster, paint and paper. Carefully arranged on the floor or suspended from the ceiling, they are typically created on site with and bear the traces of their manipulation. Delicate, messy, sensuous and visceral, they witness a physical experience of the world that lies beyond metaphorical and symbolic references. Poised between form and anti-form, they emerge like transitional states or naturally occurring sediments.

In particular, Black regards language as a secondary framework to the deeply material, affective experience that her sculptures evoke, with a fascination for the psychological implications of mess and chaos. Her simultaneously delicate and monumental works are encountered as both sculpture and site, an approach that enables her audience to engage with the materials differently and encourages new ways of looking at the spaces they activate.

A number of solo exhibitions have been devoted to Black, including: Karla Black: Sculptures 2000 - 2020, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2021); Karla Black, Des Moines Art Centre, Des Moines (2020); Karla Black,  Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2019); The Power Plant, Toronto (2018); Beaux-Arts de Paris and Musée des Archives Nationales, Paris, as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris (2017); National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2016); IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2015); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2013); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2013); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2013); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2012); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2012); Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2012); 54th Venice Art Biennale, Venice (2011); Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2010); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2009); Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg (2009); Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2009).

She has also taken part in several group exhibitions, among which: Nulla è Perduto. Arte e Materia in Trasformazione, GAMeC, Bergamo (2022); In a Waiting Room, Fiorucci Art Trust, London (2019); Installationen aus 25 Jahren Sammlung Falckenberg, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2019); Der flexible Plan. Das Rokoko in der Gegenwartskunst, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany (2018); Cher(e)s Ami(e)s, Centre Pompidou - Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (2016); Nur was nich ist ist möglich: Malerei im Raum, Museum Folkwang, Essen (2013); The space between, Tate Britain, London (2012); Before the Law, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2011); Art Now: Strange Solution, Tate Britain, London (2008).

In 2017 Karla Black took part in Viva Arte Viva, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice. In 2014 she participated to Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg. In 2011, the artist  was nominated for the Turner Prize  and represented Scotland at the 54th Venice Biennale.