Christina Quarles: Collapsed Time

Quarles’ vivid compositions of abstract human forms presented alongside works by Nam June Paik, Vito Acconci and Charlotte Posenenske

For more than a decade, LA-based painter Christina Quarles (born 1985) has created figural abstractions that are at once confined within the limits of the canvas yet defy the boundaries that contain them. This has been the artist’s way of reflecting on what she refers to as “the experience of living in a gendered, racialized body.” Collapsed Time introduces Quarles’ work and situates it within a broader art historical context. Several of Quarles’ paintings and drawings, including a site-specific, large-scale painting, are placed within an architectural installation conceived for the exhibition. The works are staged in dialogue with a selection from the National Gallery’s collection by artists such as Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Posenenske.