Cristina BanBan - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York Wednesday, November 16, 2022 | Phillips
  • The women in Cristina BanBan’s 2018 After the Storm nearly float across the canvas in a cloud-like arrangement of bulbous, amorphous bodies. BanBan has garnered international recognition for her fleshy, stylized figures in everyday moments of intimacy. Nodding to abstraction while remaining grounded in the human form, BanBan is masterful in her experimentative foreshortening of the body and dissolution of forms into color. Of her use of color, BanBan has remarked, "instead of a realistic color representation, in these new works I’m putting an emphasis on the way each color works independently outside the figure." Mixing light pastels and stark whites with flesh tones and soft outlines, BanBan melds her subjects with each other and with their background, drawing influence from her acute observations of familiar interactions amongst friends to create a lush figural landscape.

    "I am interested in how the body moves, stands, and interacts with others. I focus on the shapes and spaces that appear when bodies overlap and create new forms."
    —Cristina BanBan

    Painted while the artist was living in London, After the Storm was shown in the breakthrough exhibition Specially Normal at Kristin Hjellegjerde in 2018. The present work is a standout example from the series for its number of figures, compositional complexity and total elimination of identifiable surroundings. Nodding towards the artist’s later paintings of overlapping nudes, BanBan’s pastel background bleeds into her subjects while varying skin tones meld across figures. In an achievement of color and form, After the Storm is a brilliant celebration of contemporary female sensuality and intimacy. 

    • Provenance

      Kristin Hjellegjerde, London
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      London, Kristin Hjellegjerde, Audun Alvestad and Cristina BanBan: Specially Normal, March 29–April 28, 2018

    • Literature

      Vincenza Nobile, "Cristina BanBan: Pintar las relaciones," Metal Magazine, October 16, 2018, online (illustrated)

309

After the Storm

signed with the artist's initials "CB" lower right; signed, titled and dated "'AFTER THE STORM', 2018 CRISTINA BANBAN" on the reverse
acrylic and spray paint on canvas
59 1/8 x 70 7/8 in. (150.2 x 180 cm)
Executed in 2018.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$30,000 - 40,000 

Sold for $119,700

Contact Specialist

Patrizia Koenig
Specialist, Head of Day Sale, Afternoon Session
+1 212 940 1279
pkoenig@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

New York Auction 16 November 2022