“Los Angeles–based artist Christina Quarles paints ambiguous figures who stretch, intertwine, and merge in and with their surroundings, their bodies subjected not only to the weight and gravity of the physical world, but also to the pleasures and pressures of the social realm.” That is the greeting I received when entering the exhibit at the Frye Art Museum, the one that prepared me very little for what I was about to experience—which is the point, I realized, because what I experienced was a transcendence from my own self, and my world became acrylic, and colorful, and full of grief.