Grounding her work in contradictions of identity, appearance, and perspective, Christina Quarles dislodges fixed subjectivity to examine emotional and physical intimacy with imagination and restraint. Working primarily with acrylics, the Los Angeles-based painter experiments with emotive, gestural brushwork interposed with static objects and patterns. Drawing on personal experiences of mistaken or assumed identity as a queer cisgender black woman, Quarles’ work alludes to a multiplicity of perspectives and manifestations of form. Figures burst forth from partial abstraction, lending Quarles’ work a visceral intensity that poses an emphatic challenge to the physical and spatial limitations of the human form, creating an alternate space for physical dialogues between bodies. Quarles’ enigmatic works are often challenging, dominated by converging bodies and writhing limbs rich with ambiguous ecstasy that obscures distinctions between pleasure and pain.