Cristina BanBan’s work evades distinct narratives and fuses modernism with present moment. She depicts scenes of everyday life though her subjects and interesting compositions. BanBan’s characters have enormous hands, their proportions promise colossal strength as seen in this sketch for the painting Extra Cheese Before a Long Night Out.

Extra Cheese Before a Long Night Out depicts a quintessential New York scene, young friend gathered on the sidewalk for pepperoni pizza. At nearly double the size of the figure’s heads, the hands, though at almost cartoonish proportions, retain a sophisticated expression. Extra Cheese Before a Long Night Out comes from BanBan’s series 24-Hour Booth, a body of work painted during her 2018 residency in New York that captures the all-hours action of the city. The title of the series derives from the signage on customer service booths in subway stations, finding meaning behind the trope of “the city that never sleeps.”

Cristina BanBan (b. 1987, Barcelona, Spain) lives and works in Brooklyn. She earned her BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. Recent solo exhibitions include 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 Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus (2021); The Hort Family Collections, New York (2019); and Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2017, at 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 can be found in the permanent collections of 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.