Juxtapoz Magazine – Cristina BanBan: Mujeres @ Skarstedt, NYC
Skarstedt is delighted to announce our impending exhibition, Cristina BanBan: Mujeres. Featuring a suite of new do the job, the exhibition marks BanBan’s to start with present with the gallery given that the announcement of her illustration with Skarstedt in April 2022.
Every single of the paintings on see are titled either Mujer or Mujeres, Spanish for female or ladies. This term will get to the coronary heart of BanBan’s practice, which continues to be consistent in its issue make a difference even as she continues to mature and evolve as a painter. Women—their bodies and contradictory emotions—are BanBan’s core matter. By their types, she is in a position to filter her everyday encounters and wide array of influences onto the canvas. The result is a series of operates that are at the moment personal and common.
The a variety of women of all ages in BanBan’s universe do not meet up with the viewer’s gaze, nor do they necessarily have interaction with individuals all around them. Whilst this may perhaps communicate to the pervasive feeling of isolation in our up to date society, it also underscores the authority and self-assurance of these characters. BanBan’s women of all ages transcend voyeurism as they stand or lounge resolute in their power, belying hundreds of years of preconceived ideas about nude women of all ages in portray. Their nakedness feels intentional, pure, modern—they are hot but not sexualized, and they exist on their individual conditions. The big scale of equally the canvases on their own and the women of all ages that inhabit their fields of shade are intentional, enabling the figures to envelop the viewer while commanding awareness, regard, and admiration. Similarly, the huge palms and eyes so characteristic of BanBan’s oeuvre evince a stately but personal presence. Stylistically, these women have transitioned into classical, almost sculptural forms configured in Renaissance-esque preparations, revealing BanBan’s deep affinity for art background.
As BanBan’s practice proceeds to evolve, line and colour have taken on new roles. Charcoal and oil stick have been launched into her compositions, a byproduct of her modern transition to oil paint. The existence of these products lends a graphic top quality to the paintings, providing viewers a glimpse into her method and including a perception of immediacy. At the similar time, her palette has turned in the direction of significant, gestural strokes of earthy tones—sky blues and abundant browns, mossy greens and burnt reds. Even though these hues ground the figures in an impression of actuality, they are structured in these kinds of a way that these women look to hover in a instant devoid of discernable time and place. As this sort of, the narratives of these paintings turn into increasingly open. These maturations in her observe evoke the operate of Willem de Kooning, whose sensitive equilibrium of abstraction and figuration, coupled with a revolutionary depiction of the female form, has propelled BanBan toward a newfound liberation of topic make any difference, transcending narrative composition via a concentration on the pure painterly attributes of line, color, and variety. It is this quest to uncover how to be at the same time summary and referential that defines this new chapter of BanBan’s oeuvre.
During the is effective on perspective in Mujeres, BanBan incorporates her individual visage into her paintings alongside that of her good friends and other persons from her daily everyday living as a usually means of reflecting on her possess own ordeals. In this way, her paintings functionality as one thing of a diary, and the existing exhibition as a glimpse into BanBan’s internal globe.
Keep tuned for a aspect on BanBan’s new work in our Wintertime 2023 Quarterly, out late November 2022.