Christina Quarles: Bodies Seen From Within

“I love the idea of not being born an artist. A lot of times, there's this mythology around artists that there's just some sort of inherent genius that gets passed down from the heavens. And I think actually one of the things that makes being an artist so fulfilling as a practice is that it is a practice. It's something that you do over a lifetime, and it’s something that is both a combination of acquired technical skills and also just living in the world, and you're always changing.” Having said this, Quarles, throughout her entire life, has had a special interest in the figure. “You're painting or drawing a body, but you're in your own body. We're constantly oscillating between the desire to be seen and understood and the desire to be an authentic self.” “And it's those moments of excess and those moments of lack that I try to express in the paintings. As well as to create a sense of meaning.” Christina Quarles (b. 1985) is a Los Angeles-based artist whose practice works to dismantle assumptions and ingrained beliefs surrounding identity and the human figure. Quarles received an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2016 and holds a BA from Hampshire College. Christina Quarles was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in April 2024. The interview took place in her studio in Los Angeles, USA.