Marina Black

Inspired by Goya’s Disasters of War, the imagery from the series Hasard Anticipé may be associated with manifold of inward and outward conflicts. I would like to comment on moral questions that emerge from the knowledge that harm and malevolence occur in both worlds: outside, and, to an extent, inside our minds.

Portraying children rather than adults feels like magnifying fears and scars of childhood. I like the confrontation they create, that is simultaneously suggestive of tenderness and cruelty. I am interested in investigating the complexities of the childhood world, and how susceptible children could be to mental and physical injuries. While there might be joy in childhood, there are also bullies, strangers, loneliness and conflicts to be negotiated.

All combined, I like to subvert the sanitized notion of children as innocent beings, removed from and unaware of ambition for power and control. The images, populated mainly by the youth, represent dark forces akin to spirits or villains from childhood dreams or worse – the incarnations, that exist inside our minds and might never entirely mature.

Themes central to Marina Black' work, whether in photography, drawing or writing, are mortality & anguish, beauty & abjectness of the human body, identity & memory. Most of her work may be categorized as ‘portraits’ but rather than representing an actual person, they represent a state of mind. She is interested in the emotional truth in people’s lives: what their existence like underneath the surface? She is intrigued by the idea that when words disappear the body’s presence continues to be felt through spacing, punctuation, and light.

Black’s photography is about experimentation and the physical process of reworking the surface. She works in analogue, digital and camera-less technologies and likes the tactile qualities of prints, and dealing with fragments, that often take her to a new place.

Marina Black originally studied History and Painting, then art has become her primary preoccupation. Black received W. Lawrence Heisey Graduate Award in Fine Arts for outstanding achievement in creative & scholarly work, as well as a number of Ontario Arts Council grants. She was a featured exhibitor of the CONTACT International Photography Festival. Her work has been published in Eyemazing Susan Vol.II, curated by Susan Zadeh; FOSSILS OF LIGHT + TIME, curated by Elizabeth Avedon, an editor of L’Oeil de la Photographie; Mercy project, curated by a photographer James Withlow Delano; and BURN, 1st edition, curated by a Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey. Black’s work has been shown in solo & group exhibitions worldwide and reviewed in numerous fine art publications. She maintains an active art practice both independently and collaboratively working with artists from different mediums. Her photographs are included in the public collection of Heritage Municipal Museum of Malaga, Spain; in Alliance Francaise in Canada; in IZOLYATSIA non-governmental arts foundation, Ukraine.

Images are available as 7 x 7" pigment prints on Japanese handmade paper in an edition of 5 + 2APs. All images from 2018 to present are available 7 x 7" pigment prints on Japanese handmade paper in an edition of 15 + 2APs. Pieces range in price from $1900 to $3400, depending on availability.

Please call: (312) 266-2350 for prices of specific pieces.

Prices are print only unless otherwise indicated.