Traversing Material Worlds: Karen’s Black Residency at the UAP Foundry

In this insightful Q&A, artist Karen Black shares her unique creative journey, exploring the intersection between painting and ceramics throughout her residency at the UAP Foundry. She discusses how her diverse influences and experiences, from her work in theatre to experimenting with various materials, have shaped her artistic practice and informed her approach to creating meaningful connections within the public realm.

Aimee Rainbird (AR): Your practice embraces a fluid interplay between painting and ceramics. How has your approach to working with these forms evolved over the course of your career?

Karon Black (KB): I first began working in ceramics when I was invited to a residency for artists who had not used clay before. I found that introducing another material into my process helped me understand my ideas in a new way and that working across different mediums opens up unexpected possibilities for me. Ceramics also brings a kind of slowness and tactility
that contrasts with the more immediate, energetic nature of painting.

Switching between the two gives me a necessary shift in energy, and when I hit a block in one, I often find clarity or inspiration in the other. Over time, I’ve stopped seeing them as separate practices. Instead, they’re part of an ongoing conversation where forms, textures, and gestures migrate between surfaces and materials. This kind of movement between mediums feels generative rather than repetitive, and it’s something I’m continuing to explore in my work.

(AR): Your work is shaped by a rich mix of visual and conceptual influences – from portraiture and the human form to deeply researched scientific and historical references. How do these threads come together in your creative process?

(KB): While I don't always consciously begin a work with a clear conceptual framework, I often find that certain ideas or references begin to filter into the making process. Sometimes it’s a visual cue, other times it’s more of a thematic undercurrent. The work is shaping and shifting as I go.

I’m especially drawn to the idea that knowledge isn’t fixed, and that creative practice can hold space for ambiguity or uncertainty. I try to embrace letting the work respond to the complexity of an idea. My work seems to evolve in series and so this gives me the opportunity to be thinking about different ideas or ways of working.

(AR): You’ve spoken about your experience as Head of Wardrobe at Opera Queensland. How has your experience with materials and staging in the theatre influenced the way you would approach ‘dressing’ the public realm through your artistic practice?

(KB): In the opera and theatre, costumes and props on the stage are a form of visual language. Meaning is embedded in materials and form to situate and move the narrative forward and gives the performer a lead into their psyche.

That sense of visual language, where every texture, silhouette, or colour is precisely chosen has influenced the way I work in my practice now. I think of the public realm as a kind of stage, and a site where meaning is constantly being constructed and reconstructed. I’m interested in how we navigate a space every day, often unconsciously, and how art can disrupt or reframe those habitual experiences.

(AR): During your residency you experimented with plasticine in pattern making. How did this compare to the tactility and physical labour of working with clay?

(KB): I found myself relating plasticine more to the oil paint I use in my paintings. The ability to melt it in a frypan and control its viscosity reminded me of how I manipulate oil paint, adjusting its consistency to suit the form or effect I want to achieve. Working with plasticine required a slightly different kind of attention and was more punishing on my hands and fine motor skills.

Working with clay seems a much ‘heavier’ job on the shoulders and back. It also needs to be made thin enough for firing so there are different considerations in the making required.

(AR): In what ways did the techniques of your studio practice intersect with the materials and processes of the foundry? 

(KB): Working in a foundry environment really shifted the way I thought about materials and process on a large scale. The precision involved in mould-making and casting required me to slow down and think through each stage, which ultimately deepened my understanding of the process, including time management.

One thing I noticed was how some of the gestures and textures from my studio work, especially from painting, began to translate into the mould-making process in unexpected ways. Whether it was the imprint of a brushstroke or a surface detail, they carried over and left a trace in the final cast forms. It reminded me that even within industrial or collaborative settings, there’s still space for intuition and personal mark-making. 

I have always used studio detritus (blobs of paint, old bits of wood, wooden rulers, sticks, plastic lids, thread etc) to make small works in my studio and this led me to working with foundry detritus while I was on the residency. This is something I would like to continue working with.

(AR): Following your time with UAP, are there any processes you wish to continue exploring back in your studio? How has your residency influenced how you might now approach the form and spatial presence of your work?

(KB): I’d like to keep working with the aluminium and bronze slag and sprues to see what I can develop on a small scale that may translate to a large-scale public sculpture. The residency gave me the opportunity to imagine my works scaled up to huge sizes for public artwork, and to understand how the works are realised in a large-scale format - considering the environment and history, where the sculpture would sit and how this could work in a specific environment, considering the boundaries of a proposal.

I loved all of the processes working with metals and will keep working with scrap materials when I can. I have already been using tiny blobs of oil paint detritus in my studio to form tiny abstract figurative forms that I see scaled up to 2-3 metres.

(AR): What excites you most about creating public art? How do you wish audiences would engage with your works in the public realm?

(KB): I’m interested in public artwork that sits comfortably in a space and has a sense of belonging, but is also engaging and imaginative; forms that resist immediate recognition, encouraging people to slow down, wonder, and maybe even question what they’re seeing. To give a sense of discovery and collaboration.