Christina Quarles

Last updated
Christina Quarles
Born1985
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Education Yale School of Art
Known for Painting
SpouseAlyssa Polk
Children1

Christina Quarles (born 1985) is a queer, mixed contemporary American artist and writer, living and working in Los Angeles, whose gestural, abstract paintings confront themes of racial and sexual identities, gender, and queerness. She is considered at the forefront of a generation of millennial artists and her works shatter the societal manners of physical classification. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

Quarles was born in 1985 in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1991, after her parents' divorce, she moved with her mother to Los Angeles, California, where she continues to live and work. [3] In high school she met Alyssa Polk, the woman who would later become her spouse. [4]

She grew up as an only child to a single mother and started drawing from an early age. She took her first life drawing class at age 12. During high school, she developed skill and learned techniques from her teacher Joseph Gatto that she still uses. “He spoke of the muscle memory of rendering the form,” she said. “Before making a mark, you would trace the movements to outline the figure, with just charcoal dust. When you started to draw, if you made a mistake, you wouldn’t erase it, because that would reinforce the muscle memory; instead, you should go over it with a new mark.”

Education

After attending the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA), Quarles earned a BA in art and philosophy from Hampshire College in 2007, [5] and in 2016 an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art. In the same year, Quarles also completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. [3]

Work

Held Fast and Let Go Likewise (2020) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2022 Held Fast and Let Go Likewise, 2020, Christina Quarles at Hirshhorn 2022.jpeg
Held Fast and Let Go Likewise (2020) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2022

The titles of her works oftens allude to a written and spoken vernacular. [6] The content of her work features many distorted, often naked, human forms. She contorts and twists the bodies, making the limbs interact with different layers/dimensions of the artwork, to show a profusion of perspectives. In her personal life, her racial and sexual identity of being a black, queer, cisgendered woman is often mistaken, so the multiplicity of her work is seen as a link to those personal experiences and qualms with misrepresentation. [7] [8] [9] [10] Quarles frequently depicts couples in erotic, if improbable poses. [11] [12]

In 2018, she explained the relationship of her identity to her work: "As a woman, as somebody who's queer, as a person of color, it's important to me to not perpetuate the passive consumption of the body. But it's also what I love to do, paint the body. So I try to find ways to not allow for a passive reading. I see my work as exploring the ambiguity of identity. My figures I see as moving between genders. I do tend to have breasts in the work, but I see that more as an opportunity to have gravity expressed through this weird, fleshy, lumpy thing." [13]

In 2021, During an interview with Jareh Das of Bomb Magazine she described her work as follows: "The figures in my work are possibly individual bodies moving through time and space as well as through their perception of themselves. They also interact with their shadows. I use the medium of painting, with its historical connotations, to activate something that can go beyond fixity. I’ve found painting to be a really helpful medium just because it is so burdened by its history, its rules and expectations. This mirrors my experience of living in the body that I inhabit which at certain points I also deviate from in terms of the norm and the expectation of identity or the times when the whole system kind of shows itself up and falls apart." [14]

Career

Quarles had her first solo show entitled, "It's Gunna Be All Right, Cause Baby, There Ain't Nuthin Left," in 2017 at Skibum Macarthur in Los Angeles, CA. [15]

In 2017, Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker equated Quarles' work to that of artists Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, describing her knack for "adapting abstract aesthetics to carnal representation." [16] After Quarles' work was exhibited in "Abstract/Not Abstract" as part of Miami Art Week in 2017, art dealer Jeffrey Deitch stated he was "just stunned by her painting," [16] later adding that he considers Quarles "the hottest artist in America right now." [17]

Her second solo show followed in 2018, entitled, "Baby, I Want Yew To Know All Tha Folks I Am," at the David Castillo Gallery in Miami, FL. [12] [18]

She was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. [19]

Other notable exhibitions include "Fictions" (2017/18) at the Studio Museum in Harlem, "Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon" (2017/18) at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and "Made in LA" (2018) at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, CA. [15]

In 2020, her work was included in the group show My Body, My Rules at the Perez Art Museum Miami, Florida. The show commented on the diverse range of practices and themes of 23 female-identified artists spanning from the 20th and 21st centuries. Louise Bourgeois, Carolee Schneemann, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Ana Mendieta, Mickalene Thomas, and Wangechi Mutu were among them. [20] [21]

Six paintings by the artist were included in Cecilia Alemani's exhibition "The Milk of Dreams" at the Venice Biennale 2022, in the Central Pavilion. [22] [23] [24]

Recognition and awards

In 2015 Quarles received the Robert Schoelkopf Fellowship at Yale University and in 2016 the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. [25]

In 2018, Quarles was named a member of the "Artsy Vanguard," a group of 15 artists declared "On the Rise" by Artsy.net. [26]

Quarles was the recipient of the inaugural Pérez Prize (2019) from the Pérez Art Museum Miami. [27] In an article published by ARTnews, the museum reported having familiarized with Christina Quarles artistic practice through a show presented at a Miami gallery in 2017. The museum acquired the piece titled Forced Perspective (And I Kno It’s Rigged, But It’s tha Only Game in Town), which was on view at the 2018 edition of the Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum at University of California, Los Angeles. [27] [20]

Art market

In 2022, Quarles’ painting Night Fell Upon Us Up On Us (2019) was sold for a record $4.5 million at Sotheby’s in New York. [28]

The artist is represented by Pilar Corrias and Hauser & Wirth. [29]

Exhibitions

Quarles has staged numerous solo shows at galleries and museums in the United States and internationally. Her notable solo shows include Baby, I Want Yew To Know All Tha Folks I Am (2017), Skibum MacArthur Gallery, Los Angeles, and David Castillo Gallery, Miami; [15] [18] MATRIX 271/Christina Quarles (2018), Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; [30] Christina Quarles: In Likeness (2019), The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, West Yorkshire; [31] Yew Jumped too Deep, Yew Buried the Lead (2019), Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan; [32] and Christina Quarles (2021-2022), originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. [33]

She has also participated in many group exhibitions, including the Biennale de Lyon (2022), Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon; [34] and the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). [35]

Notable works in public collections

Publications

2021

2019

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yayoi Kusama</span> Japanese artist and writer (born 1929)

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Mehretu</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1970)

Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian American contemporary visual artist, known for her multi-layered paintings of abstracted landscapes on a large scale. Her paintings, drawings, and prints depict the cumulative effects of urban sociopolitical changes.

Wangechi Mutu is a Kenyan-born American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work. Born in Kenya, she has lived and established her career in New York City for more than twenty years. Mutu's work has directed the female body as subject through collage painting, immersive installation, and live and video performance while exploring questions of self-image, gender constructs, cultural trauma, and environmental destruction and notions of beauty and power.

Beatriz Milhazes is a Brazilian artist. She is known for her work juxtaposing Brazilian cultural imagery and references to western Modernist painting. Milhazes is a Brazilian-born collage artist and painter known for her large-scale works and vibrant colors. She is also very active in the LGBTQ+ community. She has been called "Brazil's most successful contemporary painter."

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British painter and writer, of Ghanaian heritage. She is best known for her portraits of imaginary subjects, or ones derived from found objects, which are painted in muted colours. Her work has contributed to the renaissance in painting the Black figure. Her paintings often are presented in solo exhibitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belkis Ayón</span> Cuban visual artist (1967–1999)

Belkis Ayón was a Cuban printmaker who specialized in the technique of collography. Ayón created large, highly detailed allegorical collagraphs based on Abakuá, a secret, all-male Afro-Cuban society. Her work is often in black and white, consisting of ghost-white figures with oblong heads and empty, almond-shaped eyes, set against dark, patterned backgrounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Leigh</span> American artist from Chicago (born 1967)

Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago who works in New York City in the United States. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has often said that her work is focused on “Black female subjectivity,” with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Apfelbaum</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1955)

Polly E. Apfelbaum is an American contemporary visual artist, who is primarily known for her colorful drawings, sculptures, and fabric floor pieces, which she refers to as "fallen paintings". She currently lives and works in New York City, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Njideka Akunyili Crosby</span> Visual artist

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California. Through her art, Akunyili Crosby "negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collage and photo transfer-based paintings that expose the challenges of occupying these two worlds". In 2017, Akunyili Crosby was awarded the prestigious Genius Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Taylor (artist)</span> American painter

Henry Taylor is an American artist and painter who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his acrylic paintings, mixed media sculptures, and installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firelei Báez</span> Dominican / American visual artist (born 1981)

Firelei Báez is a Dominican Republic-born, New York City-based artist known for intricate works on paper and canvas, as well as large scale sculpture. Her art focuses on untold stories and unheard voices, using portraiture, landscape, and design to explore the Western canon.

Jordan Casteel is an American figurative painter. Casteel typically paints intimate portraits of friends and family members as well as neighbors and strangers in Harlem and New York. Casteel lives and works in New York City.

Bisa Butler is an American fiber artist who has created a new genre of quilting that has transformed the medium. Although quilting has long been considered a craft, her interdisciplinary methods—which create quilts that look like paintings—have catapulted quilting into the field of fine art. She is known for her vibrant, quilted portraits celebrating Black life, portraying both everyday people and notable historical figures. Her works now count among the permanent collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami and about a dozen other art museums nationwide. She has also exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Epcot Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and many other venues. In 2020, she was commissioned to quilt cover images for Time magazine, including the "Person of the Year" issue and its "100 Women of the Year" issue. With a multi-year wait list for private commissions, one of Butler's quilts sold at auction in 2021 for $75,000 USD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suki Seokyeong Kang</span> South Korean multimedia artist

Suki Seokyeong Kang (강서경) is a visual artist based in Seoul, Korea. Kang's practice traverses painting, sculpture, performance, video and installation. Inspired by cultural traditions of Korea as well as contemporary artistic and literary discourses. Kang decodes rules and values that govern these disciplines, turning to artistic languages of the past to construct a contextual lens through which she explores the notion of individuality and freedom in the present moment.

Sasha Gordon is an American figurative painter. Her self-portraits, executed with oil paints, typically depict her nude body in a variety of strange situations. Her work grapples with misogyny, racism, and homophobia. Vogue described Gordon's paintings as having a “secret alchemy that sets them off from the current avalanche of figurative art rooted in identity politics".

Aimeé García Marrero is a Cuban painter and mixed media artist. She has exhibited her work internationally and has participated in several art biennials. García Marrero lives in Havana.

Deborah Drisana Jack is a Caribbean visual artist and poet. Raised on the island of Saint Martin, her art is both conceptual and interdisciplinary, employing installation, photography, and film to explore various themes. She has published two poetry collections. Jack graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo and teaches art at New Jersey City University.

Gisela Charfauros McDaniel is an American visual artist of Indigenous Chamorro descent, working primarily with oil painting. McDaniel was born in Bellevue, Nebraska. She has lived in Detroit.

Bony Ramirez is a Dominican-born American self-taught painter and visual artist based in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and Harlem, New York. Ramirez works primarily in paintings, sculptures, and installations that comment on elements of Caribbean visual and material culture.


Calida Garcia Rawles is a Los Angeles-based contemporary visual artist. In her large-scale paintings and murals, Rawles merges hyperrealism and abstraction. The artist is interested in questions of identity and race in relation to Western art history. Her portraits often depict representations of water and Black life. She is a practicing artist and a mother.

References

  1. ↑ Barrie, Lita (2019-06-15). "Christina Quarles And The Aesthetics Of Ambiguity". Riot Material. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  2. ↑ Amadour, Ricky (September 7, 2022). "Don't Miss These 10 New York Art Shows". www.culturedmag.com. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  3. 1 2 "Christina Quarles". Regen Projects. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  4. ↑ Lubow, Arthur (25 March 2021). "Christina Quarles Will Make You Question Everything You Know About Identity". W Magazine . Photographs by Damien Maloney; Styled by Rebecca Ramsey. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  5. ↑ Eisen, Andie (16 May 2018). "Christina Quarles". Flaunt Magazine. No. 160. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  6. ↑ Patel, Alpesh Kantilal (2017). "Christina Quarles at David Castillo Gallery". Artforum . Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  7. ↑ "Christina Quarles". Artsy . Archived from the original on 16 January 2022. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  8. ↑ "Christina Quarles". The Hammer Museum. 2018. Archived from the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  9. ↑ Amadour, Ricky. "Don't Miss These 10 New York Art Shows". www.culturedmag.com. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  10. ↑ Giovetti, Olivia (2023-03-30). "Christina Quarles Finds Freedom in Confinement at Hamburger Bahnhof". Artsy. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  11. ↑ Knight, Christopher (5 June 2018). "'Made in L.A. 2018': Why the Hammer biennial is the right show for disturbing times". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 23 August 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  12. 1 2 Vogel, Wendy (1 March 2018). "Christina Quarles". Art in America . Vol. 106, no. 3. pp. 110–111. Archived from the original on 9 December 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  13. ↑ Slenske, Michael; Langmuir, Molly (16 April 2018). ""Who's Afraid of the Female Nude? Paintings of Naked Women, Usually by Clothed Men, Are Suddenly Sitting Very Uncomfortably on Gallery Walls"". The Cut (New York Magazine) . Archived from the original on 2 December 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  14. ↑ Das, Jareh (21 July 2021). "Sitting with Discomfort: Christina Quarles Interviewed". BOMB Magazine . Archived from the original on 26 September 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  15. 1 2 3 "Christina Quarles". MutualArt.com . Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  16. 1 2 Cascone, Sarah (6 December 2017). "Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch Celebrate Abstraction With an Art Basel Group Show Extravaganza". Artnet . Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  17. ↑ Duray, Dan (6 December 2017). "Jeffrey Deitch and Gagosian Team Up to Defeat Zombie Formalism" . Garage . Vice. Archived from the original on 24 June 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  18. 1 2 "Baby, I Want Yew To Know All Tha Folks I Am - Christina Quarles". David Castillo. 2017. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  19. ↑ Sargent, Antwaun (2020). Young, gifted and Black : a new generation of artists : Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. New York, NY: D.A.P. pp. 162–165. ISBN   9781942884590.
  20. 1 2 "Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces All-Female Exhibition • Pérez Art Museum Miami". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  21. ↑ "MY BODY, MY RULES – LAST DAYS AT THE PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI - Arte Al Dia". www.artealdia.com. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  22. ↑ Reyburn, Scott (22 April 2022). "A Surreal Feel at a Wartime Venice Biennale" . The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 8 January 2023. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  23. ↑ Sooke, Alastair (21 April 2022). "At the Venice Biennale, surreal joys are in, Putin is out – and the stale males are hanging on" . The Telegraph . ISSN   0307-1235. Archived from the original on 10 October 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  24. ↑ Cuniberti, Liv (2022). "Christina Quarles". La Biennale Di Venezia . ISSN   0307-1235. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 25 July 2022.
  25. ↑ "Christina Quarles". Los Angeles Review of Books . Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  26. ↑ "15 Artists on the Rise in 2018". Artsy . 30 April 2018. Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  27. 1 2 Durón, Maximilíano (8 March 2019). "Christina Quarles Wins Inaugural $50,000 Pérez Prize from PAMM". ARTnews . Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  28. ↑ Reyburn, Scott (19 May 2022). "Spring Auction Sales for Two Blockbuster Weeks Top $2.5 Billion" . The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 12 September 2022. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  29. ↑ Selvin, Claire (28 May 2021). "Christina Quarles, Closely Watched Painter of Complex Figurations, Joins Hauser & Wirth". ARTnews . Archived from the original on 11 November 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  30. ↑ "Christina Quarles / MATRIX 271". BAMPFA . University of California, Berkeley. 2018. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  31. ↑ "Christina Quarles". The Hepworth Wakefield . Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  32. ↑ "CHRISTINA QUARLES: YEW JUMPED TOO DEEP, YEW BURIED THE LEAD". WMich. Western Michigan University. Archived from the original on 2 January 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  33. ↑ "Christina Quarles". MCAChicago. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Archived from the original on 26 September 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  34. ↑ "Biennale de Lyon - Artists". La Biennale De Lyon. Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon. Archived from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  35. ↑ "Christina Quarles". LaBiennale. Venice Biennale. 4 April 2022. Archived from the original on 6 July 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  36. ↑ "Hard Pressed". Whitney. Whitney Museum. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  37. ↑ "Christina Quarles". Rubell Museum . Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  38. ↑ "Small Offerings". BAMPFA. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  39. ↑ "Bad Air/Yer Grievances". MOCA. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  40. ↑ "Bottom's Up". Kadist . Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  41. ↑ "Casually Cruel". Tate . Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  42. ↑ "Feel'd". WalkerArt. Walker Art Center . Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  43. ↑ "Forced Perspective (And I Kno It's Rigged, But It's tha Only Game in Town)". PAMM. Pérez Art Museum Miami. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  44. ↑ "When It'll Dawn on Us, Then Will It Dawn on Us". Whitney. Whitney Museum. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  45. ↑ "24 in Focus". Louisiana. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  46. ↑ "Laid Down Beside Yew". MCAChicago. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023.
  47. ↑ "Never Believe It's Not So (Never Believe/ It's Not So)". MCAChicago. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  48. ↑ "We Knew So Little Then/ I Know Even Less Now..." ArtIC. Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  49. ↑ "For Sorrow or Inspiration". Moderna Museet . Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  50. ↑ "Held Fast and Let Go Likewise". Hirshhorn. Smithsonian Institution . Retrieved 1 January 2023.
  51. ↑ "Ascent". ICAMiami. Institute of Contemporary Art (Miami). Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.