Christina Quarles (born 1985) is a

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

, mixed contemporary American artist and writer, living and working in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of 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.

Early life

Quarles was born in 1985 in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. In 1991, after her parents' divorce, she moved with her mother to

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, where she continues to live and work. In high school she met Alyssa Polk, the woman who would later become her spouse. 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 Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, the brain creates a long- ...

; 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 Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...

in 2007, and in 2016 an MFA in Painting from the

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Master of Fine Arts, Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in g ...

. In the same year, Quarles also completed a residency at the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

Work

The titles of her works oftens allude to a written and spoken

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

. 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,

cisgender The word ''cisgender'' (often shortened to ''cis''; sometimes ''cissexual'') describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is Latin and ...

ed woman is often mistaken, so the multiplicity of her work is seen as a link to those personal experiences and qualms with misrepresentation. Quarles frequently depicts couples in erotic, if improbable poses. 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." In 2021, During an interview with Jareh Das of

Bomb Magazine ''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of discipli ...

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."

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. In 2017,

Peter Schjeldahl Peter Charles Schjeldahl (; March 20, 1942 – October 21, 2022) was an American art critic, poet, and educator. He was noted for being the head art critic at ''The New Yorker'', having earlier written for ''The Village Voice'', ''ARTnews'', and ...

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." After Quarles' work was exhibited in "Abstract/Not Abstract" as part of Miami Art Week in 2017,

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

Jeffrey Deitch Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced ''DIE-tch'';Mike Boehm (January 12, 2010)''Los Angeles Times''. born July 9, 1952) is an American art dealer and curator. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects (1996–2010) and curating groundbreaking exhib ...

stated he was "just stunned by her painting," later adding that he considers Quarles "the hottest artist in America right now." 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. She was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition ''Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art''. Other notable exhibitions include "Fictions" (2017/18) at the

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an African-American art museum at 144 West 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African A ...

, "Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon" (2017/18) at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

of Contemporary Art in New York, and "Made in LA" (2018) at the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

in Westwood, CA. 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 Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

Carolee Schneemann Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and ...

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist whose works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 1990, she became one of the first African-American women to exhibit at the Venice Bien ...

Ana Mendieta Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter, and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. She is considered one of the most influential Cuban-American ar ...

Mickalene Thomas Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel.

, and

Wangechi Mutu Wangechi Mutu (born 1972) is a Kenyan American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work.

were among them. Six paintings by the artist were included in Cecilia Alemani's exhibition "The Milk of Dreams" at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

2022, in the Central Pavilion.

Personal life

Quarles'

Altadena Altadena () is an unincorporated area, and census-designated place in the San Gabriel Valley and the Verdugos regions of Los Angeles County, California. Directly north of Pasadena, it is located approximately from Downtown Los Angeles. Its po ...

home was destroyed in the

Eaton Fire The Eaton Fire was a highly destructive wildfire in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, in Southern California. The fire began on the evening of January 7, 2025, in Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains, and a powerful S ...

, one of the

January 2025 Southern California wildfires From January 7 to 31, 2025, a series of 14 destructive wildfires affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County in California, United States. The fires were exacerbated by drought conditions, low humidity, a buildup of ve ...

; it had previously been damaged by wildfire in April 2024.

Recognition and awards

In 2015 Quarles received the Robert Schoelkopf Fellowship at Yale University and in 2016 the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. In 2018, Quarles was named a member of the "Artsy Vanguard," a group of 15 artists declared "On the Rise" by ''Artsy.net''. Quarles was the recipient of the inaugural Pérez Prize (2019) from the

Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...

. 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

at University of California, Los Angeles.

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 Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and maintain ...

in New York. The artist is represented by

Pilar Corrias Pilar Corrias is a British contemporary art gallery founded by Pilar Corrias (born 1969 in Rome). History Founded by art historian Pilar Corrias, a former director of Lisson Gallery and Haunch of Venison, the gallery opened on 16 October 2008 w ...

and

Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery. History Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by co-president Marc Payot. In 2020, Ewan Venters was ap ...

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,

, and David Castillo Gallery,

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

; ''MATRIX 271/Christina Quarles'' (2018),

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

; ''Christina Quarles: In Likeness'' (2019),

The Hepworth Wakefield The Hepworth Wakefield is an art museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, which opened on 21 May 2011. The gallery is situated on the south side of the River Calder and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born ...

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

; ''Yew Jumped too Deep, Yew Buried the Lead'' (2019),

Richmond Center for Visual Arts James and Lois Richmond Center for Visual Arts is a visual arts center at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States ...

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

; and ''Christina Quarles'' (2021-2022), originating at the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is on ...

. She has also participated in many group exhibitions, including the Biennale de Lyon (2022), Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon; and the

59th Venice Biennale The 59th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between April and November 2022, having been delayed a year due to the COVID pandemic. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic directo ...

(2022).

Notable works in public collections

*''Hard Pressed'' (2017),

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

*''Hedge Yer Bets (Baby, I'm a Maze)'' (2017),

Rubell Museum The Rubell Museum, formerly the Rubell Family Collection, is a private Contemporary art, contemporary art museum with locations in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami, Miami, Florida, and the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

*''Small Offerings'' (2017),

*''Bad Air/Yer Grievances'' (2018),

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

*''Bottoms Up'' (2018),

Kadist KADIST is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts organization with an international contemporary art collection. KADIST hosts artist residencies and produces exhibitions, publications, and public events. Founded by Vincent Worms and Sandra Te ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

*''Casually Cruel'' (2018),

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

*''Feel'd'' (2018),

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

*''Forced Perspective (And I Kno It’s Rigged, But It’s tha Only Game in Town)'' (2018),

*''When It'll Dawn on Us, Then Will It Dawn on Us'' (2018), Whitney Museum, New York *''Hush Now Baby Baby'' (2019),

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Louisiana, is an art museum located north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Attracting over 700,000 guests annually, the Louisiana is Scandinavia's most visited museum for Modern art, modern and contempor ...

, Humlebæk, Denmark *''Laid Down Beside Yew'' (2019),

*''Never Believe It’s Not So (Never Believe/ It’s Not So)'' (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago *''We Knew So Little Then/ I Know Even Less Now...'' (2019),

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

*''For Sorrow or Inspiration'' (2020),

Moderna Museet Moderna Museet is a state museum for modern and contemporary art located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, opened in 1958. In 2009, the museum opened Moderna Museet Malmö in Malmö. History The museum opened in Stockh ...

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

*''Held Fast and Let Go Likewise'' (2020),

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

, Washington, D.C. *''Ascent'' (2021),

Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

Publications

2021

*Quarles, Christina, 'Man in Shower in Beverly Hills'; in: Little, Helen, ''David Hockney. Moving Focus'', London: Tate Publishing, 2021, pp. 84–87, ill. *Quarles, Christina, 'Bacon Today'; in: ''Royal Academy of Arts Magazine'', London, no. 153, Winter 2021, pp. 50–51, ill.

2019

*Quarles, Christina, 'Christina Quarles'; in: Porter, Janelle (ed.), ''Mike Kelley: Timeless Painting'', Zurich/New York: Hauser & Wirth, 2019, p. 113, ill.

References

External links

Artist's site.

Regen Projects - Christina Quarles.

Pilar Corrias - Christina Quarles.
* Walker Art Center permanen
collection

Hauser and Wirth - Christina Quarles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quarles, Christina 1985 births Yale School of Art alumni 21st-century American painters Living people Painters from Chicago Painters from Los Angeles Hampshire College alumni 21st-century American women painters