Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles will present Christina Quarles’ The Ground Glows Black from 24 February to 3 May 2026, marking her first exhibition with the gallery in the city. The new collection of paintings was developed in the aftermath of the Altadena wildfires and reflects a heightened sense of geographic and emotional displacement.
Known for her fluid figures and charged surfaces, Quarles pushes her compositions further here, building dense canvases in which bodies appear stretched, folded, suspended within moving planes of pattern and colour. Architectural pieces and digitally inflected spaces intersect with fragments of the human form, creating unstable environments that mirror the precariousness of life.
Born in Chicago in 1985 and based in Los Angeles, Quarles has built an international reputation for paintings that challenge fixed understandings of the self and the body. Drawing on art historical influences and digital processes, she constructs compositions in reminiscent more reminiscent of relief sculpture than traditional painting.
