
3 minute read
CHRISTINA QUARLES
Los Angeles-based artist Christina Quarles visited Menorca to unveil her new Exhibition at the Hauser & Wirth Art Gallery on Isla del Rey. This is her first exhibition in Spain, coinciding with a major presentation at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and follows her participation in last year’s celebrated exhibition ‘The Milk of Dreams’ at the Venice Biennale.
On display are her paintings on canvas and paper and her drawings, all produced especially for the exhibition. Christina visited Menorca last summer. She was fascinated by the history, texture and shadows on the walls in the gallery and intrigued by the meditative experience of arriving at the island by boat. She took into consideration these surroundings when creating her critically acclaimed pieces.
At the Press launch Christina explained how the paintings display fragmented, polymorphous bodies embedded in rich, textural patterns and her fascination with the subject of bodily experience. Tangled arms and legs transform across her paintings (often too many for the bodies), while perspectival planes bisect bodies, simultaneously grounding and dislocating them in space. She explained that as individuals we can only see our own arms and legs and not our own faces and so our limbs give us a unique perspective of our own bodies.
Quarles begins by making initial sweeping marks on the canvas that then evolve into line drawings of human forms and body parts. A graphic artist for many years, she then photographs the work and uses Adobe Illustrator to draw the backgrounds and structures that ultimately surround the figures.

As a queer, cis-gendered woman born to a black father and a white mother, Quarles has described her position of engagement with the world as ‘multiply situated,’ an experience of embodiment reflected in her art. When she told school friends she had a black father they would not believe her and she felt the struggle to project her own identity. Her figures question the boundaries of identity. Vibrant magentas, blues, greens, and yellows serve not as a means of describing reality but as a way of actively resisting the viewer’s instinct to assign binary classifications to the figures such as male or female, white or Black, abstract or representational.
In addition to the paintings, ‘Come In From An Endless Place’ features Quarles’ fine-line drawings, where figures are often accompanied by phrases written into the composition, evoking the artists’interest in language’s potential to create and disrupt meaning. The sentences, written in a mixture of slang and phonetic spelling, draw from a wide range of references; overheard phrases, poetry, or pop songs, such as‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen, or ‘Self Control’ by Frank Ocean. In ‘Wish We’d Grown Up on tha Same Advice’ Quarles writes Ocean’s lyrics into a serene scene with figures that recline and embrace. Drawing is a key principle in Quarles’ work as she began the practice at the age of 12, attending life drawing classes after school.
The Education Lab at the gallery provides a dedicated learning space which addresses Christina Quarles’ approach to the body and language. It has been created in collaboration with students from CREAE Espacio Creativo in Menorca, a non-formal arts school for drawing, painting and ceramics. Hauser & Wirth has Education Labs at its galleries in Menorca, Somerset, and Downtown Los Angeles, as well as Chillida Leku museum. Each is a collaboration with the local community. I would recommend you visit the lab to watch and listen to a video made by Christina, to get an insight into how she creates her paintings and drawings, before returning to view them once more in the gallery.
Quarles was born in Chicago in 1985 and raised by her mother in Los Angeles. In 2007, Quarles graduated from Hampshire College with dual BA degrees in Philosophy and Studio Art, then trained and worked in the field of graphic design. She became influenced by Marlene Dumas, Leonora Carrington, Jack Whitten, David Hockney, and Philip Guston. Seeking a vehicle for expressing the feelings and experiences, Quarleswent on to attend Yale University, where she received her MFA in 2016. She participated in an intensive artist residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture that same year.

You can combine a trip to the Gallery with a tour of former Hospital on the Isla del Rey. The Foundation provides tours in English on Sunday and Thursday morning. Make a day of it with lunch at La Cantina or take a picnic to eat while you take in the surroundings. To visit, book the Yellow Catamaran shuttle service to the Isla del Rei from the Port of Mahon. The price is 10€ for adults and 3€ for under 18s. Children under 3 go free. menorca.hauserwirth.com/en/book/shuttle-boat/1
All Images:©Christina Quarles