“Cloud woman”

Cristina began her artistic career working with drawing and painting in Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, in the 1980s. After establishing herself on the Brazilian scene as part of the Geração 80, together with artists such as Beatriz Milhazes and Adriana Varejão, she received a studio-residence grant from the State of Brandenburg, in Germany, to carry out an artistic project at Wiepersdorf Castle, and a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts, where she remained until 1995. During this period, she studied painting under the tutelage of Dutch conceptual artist Jan Dibbets.

Cristina Canale’s paintings combine abstraction and representation. Her images seem to depict a liquid world where a few recognizable elements emerge from overlapping color fields. For decades, her work has explored the history of painting and representation and its ongoing development. Her early works are physical, full of dark hues, solid lines, and impasto. In the mid-1990s, Cristina moved to Germany and adopted a brighter, less impasto color palette, working with the sensitivity of lines and areas of color.

Her recent works reveal influences from Fauvism, Post-Impressionism, and Neo-Expressionism, in portraits of landscapes, people, and domestic scenes, which recall pre-modern and early modernist themes. Throughout her work, the artist combines the literal and the lyrical, celebrating the malleability and magic of painting in playful environments.

Cristina Canale has exhibited her work at the 21st São Paulo Biennial (São Paulo, Brazil, 1991); and at the 6th Curitiba Biennial (Curitiba, Brazil, 2011). Some of her most recent solo shows include: "Zwischen den Welten" (Kunstforum Markert Gruppe, Hamburg, Germany, 2015); "Entremundos" (Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014); "Between Being and Things" (Nara Roesler Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); and "Protagonist and Sunday" (Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2013). She has also recently participated in the group shows "#2018" (Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2018); "The Color of Brazil", curated by Paulo Herkenhoff and Marcelo Campos, at the Rio Art Museum (Rio de Janeiro, 2016), and "Ways of Seeing Brazil: Itaú Cultural 30 Years", OCA, (Sao Paulo, 2017).