Magic Hour
Additional information
| Technique | Digital archival print |
|---|---|
| Edition | Edition of 50 |
| Sheet Size | Sheet size: 71.1 x 55.9 cm (28 x 22 in) |
| Inscription | Signed and numbered by the artist on the front |
| Publisher | Published in 2021 |
Magic Hour is named after the warm light of dusk, created from a fresco Christina Quarles made in Skowhegan over the summer of 2016. Quarles’ expressive technique features polymorphous figures that twist to fit the constraints of the pictureframe. Quarles describes the significance of this summer to her practice: “a lot of the gestural language of my work was well on its way by the time I was at Skowhegan, but there were some key developments in my painting that would happen that summer, specifically that afternoon I made this fresco.”
Quarles’ unique approach to figuration, dissolving boundaries between figuration and abstraction, builds “ambiguity, legibility, intimacy” into fluid limbs. Rather than the traditional life-drawing approach of studying another body, Quarles evokes the feeling of “being within your own body”, an interiority comprised of tangled interconnection rather than cohesive form. The dynamism of her work testifies to the flux of relationships and the context of the body legible through encounter.