Bags of cash for Glasgow gallery

The Turner Prize-nominated Scottish artist Karla Black is demonstrating that, despite her success, she still remembers her roots.

The former Glasgow School of Art student has donated four signed limited-edition bags from her latest exhibition to a silent auction, the proceeds of which will go to the Glasgow Project Room.

The Project Room is a non-profit making gallery, running since 1997, which exhibits the work of both aspiring and established artists outside the constraints of council funding. It thus ensures artists’ work is not overlooked through fear of its being unprofitable.

Instead, a committee of artists who are members of the Project Room look at individuals’ work and decide who will exhibit – something the organisation takes great pride in.

Black’s current exhibition is a project commissioned by 'Scotland + Venice' – a partnership between the national arts organisation Creative Scotland, the National Galleries of Scotland and British Council Scotland – and is showing at Italy’s Venice Biennale festival, which is considered to be one of the most prestigious celebrations of contemporary visual art in the world.

However, Black has credited the Project Room as being instrumental to her early career, which next month could culminate in a £25,000 first prize should she overcome Martin Boyce, Hilary Lloyd and George Shaw to win the prestigious Turner Prize award.

The Project Room's current exhibition is Darren Tesar’s ‘A Barbarous Intensity’, a display that includes objects as diverse as a termite-ravaged piece of wood as well as his cat’s cardboard bed.

Tesar, 27, from Wisconsin, came to Glasgow two years ago to study at School of Art and soon became a regular visitor to the gallery.

“There aren’t many spaces in Glasgow that have a good standing within a contemporary art setting and also have very little hands on the artist,” he said.

Artist Penny Sharp, a champion of the Project Room, said: “It is important for these artists to have independence creatively. The Project Room provides this.”