Exalted Bodies: Christina Quarles’ New Take on Portraiture

The work of Christina Quarles is characterized by an advanced exploration of the human body, in which the tangle of limbs serves as the point of departure for several reflections on the corporeal experience. In her compositions that lie somewhere between figuration and abstraction, we often see figures endowed with additional limbs, who seem to fight against the limits of their own bodies, the environment in which they find themselves or even the confines of the work itself. Through her fragmented forms, Quarles addresses the ambiguity related to her own body’s experience. Self-identifying as queer, born to a Black father and a white mother but often perceived as white by others, the artist considers the gap that exists between her self-perception and the way others perceive her. So, her portraits do not represent subjects observed from the outside by an inquisitive eye, but rather a view from the inside out. The painter explains that she is looking for a way to show what is going on inside – a vision of the world emanating from the body.

The techniques Quarles has used for Kicking n’ Screaming are characteristic of her work. In fact, the painting is teeming with contrasting colours and a variety of pictorial gestures: drips, lines, daubing, scratching made with a comb, or paint strokes made with a dry brush or one saturated with acrylics. Her figures are sketched out first, such that they set the stage for and dictate the environment in which they take shape. What results is a blurring between body and context; a sense of confusion that reflects the tension around what the artist sees as the desire to be instantly understood, all while displaying, in contradiction, certain aspects of ourselves that hinder this comprehension.

In her pictorially multilayered paintings, Quarles challenges the notion of identity. She explores the intersections between the body, its experiences and the labels with which it is saddled. Her figures stretch out and deform, at once materializing and dissolving. With its rich colours and textures, Kicking n’ Screaming almost resembles a sculpture as much as it does a traditional painting. It is one of the works in a series of six that came out of a residency Quarles did in the English countryside, in Somerset. The artist explains how the region’s atmosphere and landscape influenced the works in this series:

Kicking n’ Screaming contains the motifs we have come to expect from Quarles: elongated and tentacular figures moving in a strange universe, a kind of theatre. The composition emerges from a rich matte blue ground that evokes the influence of rural England on the artist’s palette.

This work will be displayed this fall at the Museum, in the contemporary art galleries located on Level S2 of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.

About the artist

Born in Chicago in 1985, Christina Quarles grew up in Los Angeles, where she continues to live and work. After undergraduate studies at Hampshire College, she became a graphic designer. Some years later, she returned to school and received an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art before pursuing a professional art practice. Quarles has also been a participant at the highly regarded Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture.