BLACK CANDY presents a delectable array of obsidian works featuring the City Art Room’s range of artists. Black objects absorb the full spectrum of visible colours, reflecting none of these colours to the eyes. In paint, black represents a mixture of all pigments. This act of absorption creates physiological changes, including sensations of empowerment and confidence or depression and sadness.

The use of black is rich in its cultural and symbolic associations, and it has also shaped our biases and concepts of morality and of other peoples through language. Nietzsche boldly connotes that the etymological origins of the word “black” is a primitive force in his essay, The Genealogy of Morals:

“The Latin malus ["bad"] (beside which I place melas [Greek for "black"]) might designate the common man as dark, especially black-haired…”

Blackness is also a pivotal terrain in the history of minimalist painting (Ad Reinhardt’s explorations into perception and Kasimir Malevich’s ideas of the “dead square” and the “full void,” for example). The shade is also established as the favourite fashion choice amongst art world denizens. BLACK CANDY meanders through these various notions of black, whether the artists are using it as a conceptual and/or aesthetic device.