Artist Cristina BanBan: “Painting is like dancing.” | Louisiana Channel

Meet one of the rising stars of the art world, Spanish painter Cristina BanBan, who lives and works in New York. “When you dance, you don’t think too much of what you’re doing. You just follow what your body says.”

During this studio visit in Brooklyn, New York, Cristina BanBan reflects on the emotional depth, personal history, and intuitive processes that shape her expressive, large-scale depictions of the female form. Known for her vibrant use of colour and visceral approach to painting, BanBan invites viewers into her creative world—one she describes as a universe of her own making.

To BanBan, the uninhibited connection to emotion and gesture lies at the core of her practice, which she sees not just as a means of representation but as an emotional release: “When I have big emotions, I like to put them in my work… then I come here and after a few hours working, I feel much better.”

Although her work draws on the long-standing tradition of the female nude, BanBan offers a distinctively contemporary and personal perspective. “I paint the female nude because, first of all, it’s the image I know the most,” she explains. “There are infinite ways of depicting a woman.”

The figures in her paintings often blur the lines between self-portraiture and universality, embodying a spectrum of human emotion—particularly, she notes, melancholy. “It’s sadness, but also you can connect with yourself.”

BanBan’s artistic journey began early, rooted not in museums or formal exposure to art history but in an intuitive childhood love for drawing. “Since age five until seventeen, I used to go every afternoon to art school,” she recalls, describing the dedication of her father who would drive her there daily by motorcycle. This early passion for colour, texture, and experimentation continues to define her approach today.

Now based in New York, BanBan’s practice fluidly moves between sketching, charcoal composition, and large-scale oil painting. Each stage, she says, holds its own energy—from the contemplative intimacy of drawing to the physicality of painting: “It’s very energetic and visceral.”

Referencing artists as varied as Paula Rego, Lucian Freud, and Willem de Kooning, BanBan positions her work within a lineage that spans both figuration and abstraction but remains unmistakably her own. “All Cristina BanBan paintings are Cristina BanBan,” she says. “I cannot separate myself from my work.”

The interview also touches on her most recent institutional milestone—a solo exhibition organised by the Lorca Foundation in Granada. Inspired by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, the body of work prompted a return to figuration and symbol-laden storytelling. “It has been the first time that I have to think about somebody else’s work,” BanBan notes. “It’s good to challenge yourself… otherwise you will keep doing what you already mastered.”

Cristina BanBan was born in 1987 in Barcelona, Spain. She lives and works in New York. She earned her BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. Recent solo exhibitions include a show at the Lorca Foundation in Granada, Skarstedt, New York (2024); Skarstedt, London (2023); Perrotin, Tokyo (2023); Skarstedt, New York (2022-2023); Perrotin, Paris (2022); Perrotin, Shanghai (2021); 1969 Gallery and Albertz Benda, New York (2021); WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2020); 1969 Gallery, New York (2020); 68 Projects, Berlin (2019); the Dot Project, London (2018).

BanBan has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Present Generations at the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus (2021); The Hort Family Collections, New York (2019); and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2017 at the Royal Academy of the Arts, London. She was the recipient of a residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia (2019) and The Arts Club Prize, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2017).

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; FLAG Art Foundation, New York; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain; and the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL.

Cristina BanBan was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at her studio in Brooklyn, New York, in March 2025.

Camera: Sean Hanley
Edit: Signe Boe Pedersen
Producer: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2025

Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet and C.L. Davids Fond og Samling.

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