Known for her expressive, inflated figures executed in oil on canvas, Cristina BanBan’s work takes as muse the female form, presenting bold yet intimate compositions which speak to women’s everyday experience of companionship, humour and self-definition. While drawing on inspirations ranging from Neoclassical portraiture to Abstract Expressionism and the graphic language of manga, BanBan conceives of her work in ultimately diaristic terms. Deeply invested in the qualities of her medium, BanBan combines such emotive exploration with investigations of the haptic, sensational qualities of paint.
BanBan was born in 1987 in Barcelona. Recent solo exhibitions of BanBan’s work have been held across Japan, the US, China, France, Germany, and Britain. Her work will be included in the forthcoming exhibition The Echo of Picasso at The Museo Picasso, Málaga, opening this autumn. Her work is held in collections including the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus; Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the Perez Art Museum, Miami. She was the 2021 artist in residence at the Palazzo Monti, and recipient of the 2017 Arts Club Prize from the Royal Academy of Arts, London. BanBan lives and works in Brooklyn.
