Los Angeles–based artist Christina Quarles (American, b. 1985) paints bodies that are subjected not only to the weight and gravity of the physical world but also to the pleasures and pressures of the social realm. Her ambiguous and evocative scenes feature figures whose limbs, torsos, and faces collide and merge with familiar domestic objects made strange through her color choices and experimental painterly gestures. Her work explores the universal experience of existing within a body, as well as the ways race, gender, and sexuality intersect to form complex identities.

The largest presentation of her work to date, the exhibition at the MCA brings together a selection of her work made over the last three years, as well as a new, large-scale installation that explores illusions and histories of painting.

The exhibition is curated by Grace Deveney, former Assistant Curator, and Jack Schneider, Curatorial Assistant. It is presented in the Bergman Family Gallery on the museum’s second floor.

Image: Christina Quarles, Can Yew Feel? Tha Days Are Gettin’ Shorter, 2018, © Christina Quarles, Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles.