Libby Black: A Light That Never Goes Out

Gallery 16 is proud to announce our first solo exhibition with Bay Area artist Libby Black. This is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in San Francisco since 2012. In this body of work the artist presents her incredible paper sculptures which invite viewers to decode a catalogue of influences both past and present. A Light That Never Goes Out will feature her signature paper, hot glue, and acrylic still life sculptures as well as a series of paintings and drawings.

Black’s constructs are a blend of fantasy and reality. She reshapes objects from her life into a series of still lifes that, in effect, become self-portraits of the artist. They share the humility and humor of Black’s past works while providing thought provoking commentary on larger societal issues. These works are simultaneously biting, funny, and deeply introspective.

I am interested in having the work chart a path through personal history into a broader cultural context to explore themes of identity, impermanence and the glitzy emptiness of desire and greed. Making this work is a way to take pleasure in re-creating objects while also coding my identities (as a daughter, a lesbian, an artist, a mother, a dreamer, a fan, a lover) into the compositions. – Libby Black, 2016

Libby Black’s recent museum exhibitions include New Image Sculpture, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Workout Room, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions 2000-2010, Orange County Museum of Art, CA. Artists of Invention: A Century of CCA at the Oakland Museum of California; Bay Area Now 4, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; The 2004 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art; The Superfly Effect, Jersey City Museum, NJ; Art on Paper 2008, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and Smoke and Mirrors: Deception in Contemporary Art, Visual Arts Gallery, University of Alabama at Birmingham.