"I rarely use curse words in my titles, but it was what I was feeling. In all my titles, I try to reference my state of mind when I'm making the work or something I've been listening to, a way of anchoring that moment in time. For that one, I was painting this mucky, swampy leg emerging from the ground. It's this feeling of being brought down: every time you try to get up, just being kind of stuck in the muck."
"Biracial and queer, she gives her images of bodies an elasticity and fluidity that is stunning. At the same time, she explores the plasticity of acrylic paint, layered on the canvas like a second skin or applied over digitally generated stencils to look like large stickers—hence there is much talk about her work as collage, even when her medium is solely acrylic."
Christina Quarles is an artist who pushes acrylic paint to its limits, creating images of bodies with striking elasticity and fluidity. Her work combines traditional painting with digital stencils and layering techniques that create collage-like effects. Since earning her MFA from Yale in 2016, Quarles has explored power and vulnerability through the self. Her recent exhibition, The Ground Glows Black at Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, features work created after the Eaton fire devastated her Altadena community. These new paintings appear more untethered and wild, with titles reflecting her emotional state during creation. The work features deep spatial impressions resembling portals or wombs, creating ambient light effects within the compositions.
#contemporary-painting #abstract-figuration #queer-art #trauma-and-resilience #mixed-media-techniques
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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