On the occasion of ‘Christina Quarles. The Ground Glows Black’ – the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery in Los Angeles, please join us on Saturday 28 February at 12.30 pm for a conversation with Christina Quarles and Curator and Executive Director at ICA LA Anne Ellegood who will discuss Quarles’ latest body of work, which she created in the wake of the wildfires in Altadena. 
 
A book signing will follow the conversation. Artbook will sell copies of ‘Living in the Wake,’ the recently published exhibition catalogue from Quarles’ museum survey at Kistefos in Norway. The signing will be on a first come, first served basis.

This event is free; however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.

About the Exhibition 
Created in the wake of the wildfires in Altadena, the artist’s latest body of work reflects an acute sense of displacement—geographical, emotional and corporeal.

Quarles is admired for the dynamism and power with which she manipulates paint and surface; with the new paintings in this exhibition, she continues to test the expressive and physical limits of her medium. Kinetic planes of color, texture and pattern evoke architectural and digital realms, while wrenching human forms seem to bend and fold as if by centrifugal force. Denser and more frenetic than Quarles’ earlier works, these canvases compress time and place with heightened intensity. At its core, her practice contemplates the instability of existence, the extent of resilience and what it means to inhabit multiple realities at once.

About Christina Quarles
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. Born in Chicago and raised by her mother in Los Angeles, Quarles took art classes from an early age. She developed a solid foundation for a lifelong drawing practice through after-school programs and figure drawing classes at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.

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. As her immersion in the visual arts progressed, she became well versed in and influenced by Marlene Dumas, Leonora Carrington, Jack Whitten, David Hockney, and Philip Guston. Seeking a vehicle for expressing the feelings and experiences language alone cannot articulate, Quarles went 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.

Quarles has been the recipient of several awards and grants. She was the inaugural recipient of the 2019 Pérez Art Museum Miami Prize, in 2017 she received the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, and in 2015 she received the Robert Schoelkopf Fellowship at Yale University and participated in the Fountainhead Residency in 2017. In 2022, Quarles’s work was featured in ‘The Milk of Dreams,’ the 59th International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani and in ‘manifesto of fragility,’ the main exhibition of the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath.

About Anne Ellegood 
Anne Ellegood has been a curator of contemporary art for over twenty-five years and has worked in several major institutions in the United States throughout her career, including the Hammer Museum, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. In September 2019, she was appointed the Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) where she oversees the executive, administrative, and artistic direction of the museum. Prior to joining ICA LA, Ellegood was the Senior Curator at the Hammer Museum from 2009 – 2019, where in addition to organizing exhibitions and building the collection, she oversaw the Hammer Projects series and the Public Engagement program. Her most recent curatorial project was ‘Scratching at the Moon,’ presented at ICA LA in 2024. Co-curated with artist Anna Sew Hoy, the exhibition featured the work of 13 Asian American artists and was awarded Best Thematic Group show at an American museum by ARTnews. Ellegood received her MA in Curatorial Practice from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and was a 2020 Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership. In 2020, Ellegood co-founded the Los Angeles Visual Arts Coalition (LAVA Coalition), a coalition of 30 small to mid-size visual arts organization in Los Angeles formed at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic to provide mutual support, share information, create opportunities for professional development, collectively fundraise, and advocate for our sector.