“Cloud woman”

Cristina began her artistic career working with drawing and painting at Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, in the 1980s. After establishing herself in the Brazilian art scene as part of the Generation 80, alongside artists such as Beatriz Milhazes and Adriana Varejão, she received a studio-residence grant from the State of Brandenburg, 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 Art Academy, where she remained until 1995. During this period, she studied painting under the tutelage of the Dutch conceptual artist Jan Dibbets.

Cristina Canale's paintings combine abstraction and representation. Her images seem to depict a fluid world where recognizable elements emerge from overlapping chromatic fields. For decades, her work has investigated the history of painting and representation and their continuous development. 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 most recent works reveal influences from Fauvism, Post-Impressionism, and Neo-Expressionism, in portraits of landscapes, people, and domestic scenes, reminiscent of 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 settings.

Cristina Canale exhibited 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 exhibitions include: "Zwischen den Welten" (Kunstforum Markert Gruppe, Hamburg, Germany, 2015); "Entremundos" (Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014); "Entre o ser e as coisas" (Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); and "Protagonista e domingo" (Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2013). She also recently participated in the group exhibitions "#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, (São Paulo, 2017).