Christina Quarles, Acrylic on Canvas, 50 × 42 inches, 2017.
News of Home
by Christine Kitano
An ocean away, California wildfires rage. At 24, a friend gives in after a lifetime of bad luck:
two types of cancer. I know those fires, the stone-clouded sky, the grey sunlight the color of
ghosts. In patio corners, ash will collect in piles of soft molt. This morning, I find a fallen crow
on the doorstep of the hotel. A tourist here, I’ve been taking photographs of everything: the
vaulted ceilings in the cathedrals, the cobblestone pathways that almost glow in the precise light
of dusk, and even the lake, green and webbed with algae. I’m always looking for connections,
but on this, the crow’s still wing, the lens won’t focus. Whether I stoop closer, or take a step
back, I can’t stop my hands from shaking.
Christina Quarles, Acrylic on Canvas, 48 × 60 inches, 2017.
Dint We, Didn’t We, Dint We Have a Gud Time Now?
Christina Quarles, Acrylic on Canvas, 50 × 40 inches, 2017.
About Christina Quarles:
As a Queer, cisgender woman who is black but is often mistaken as white, Christina Quarles engages with the world from a position that is multiply situated. Informed by her daily experience with ambiguity, she seeks to dismantle assumptions of fixed subjectivity through images that challenge the viewer to contend with the disorganized body in a state of excess.