Summer Series: Christina Quarles in Conversation With Helen Molesworth

Christina Quarles (b. 1985 Chicago) received an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art in 2016 and holds a BA in Philosophy and Studio Arts from Hampshire College. She participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2016.

Quarles’ work will be the subject of forthcoming exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (April 17 – August 29, 2021); X Museum, Beijing (March 2021); South London Gallery, London (March 2021); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto; and the Frye Museum, Seattle. Past solo exhibitions by the artist have been held at The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2019 – 2020); Pond Society, Shanghai (2019 – 2020); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2018); and the Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo (2019). Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions including Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, London (2019); The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2019); Made in L.A., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Fictions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2017); Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, New Museum, New York (2017); and Still Human, Rubell Family Collection Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami (2017).

She has been the recipient of several awards and grants including the Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Prize (2019); Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant (2017); and the Robert Schoelkopf Fellowship at Yale University (2015). She participated in the Fountainhead Residency in 2017.

Work by the artist is held in the collections of national and international institutions including Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; KADIST, Paris and San Francisco; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Rubell Family Collection Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami; Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Zabludowicz Collection, London.

Quarles lives and works in Los Angeles