120 x 180mm, 96 pages, full colour printing, perfect bound, softcover with french flaps, 2023

Black Slit documents a process whereby Katrina Palmer learned to throw a knife, using vibrantly painted clay objects as her targets. The setting is a studio/office/classroom/bedsit at night – a multi-purpose space which must be prepared for the action. We see a sofa-bed being made in low light, a knife laid on a table before it flies through the air, and then the focus shifts to the targets themselves. The clay was still wet and unstable when struck by the blade, resulting in unpredictable radical disruptions to the colour and shape of these hand-crafted forms. Alongside filming and editing footage of the knife throwing, Palmer practised drawing lines, to make a series of works on paper which are also reproduced in this book. Responding to the borders, margins and channels of the lined A4 page, Palmer produced curiously visceral but lean forms that are a new element to her work.

Black Slit was developed alongside the exhibition: Katrina Palmer, ‘What’s Already Going On’, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre.

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