About Cristina Dalla Valentina

My work is contemplation of reality and vision of an elsewhere.

My inspiration comes from the direct work with materials: while I paint, images and memories emerge freely in my mind, and create the meaning I attribute to the single painting.
The way I arrange the colors and shapes expresses a movement in space and time that embodies a whole series of experiences and emotions: things I have seen and savored, places I have visited and loved, encounters and relationships, wonders, doubts, pains, joys... everything merges on the canvas when I let the pictorial gesture flow freely.
The canvas is the place where my soul can live aloud.

I want my art to open you to the possibility of wonder and the search for your own meaning.

Paintings are built layer by layer, with intentionality but also with expressive freedom, in order to obtain a harmonious and energetic composition and lively textures, in an instinctive and organic whole.
Colors play a role of primary importance in this because they underline the composition from an emotional point of view.

I live in Verona, Italy and I have been working in the artistic trade for over 15 years: since 2018 I'm a full-time artist.
I started my artistic career as a watercolorist of landscapes and other figurative genres, then moving on to abstract painting on acrylic and mixed media canvas.

Painting is not the simple application of more or less refined techniques, but it demands a continuous research within ourselves: therefore it cannot stand still but must reveal our path of knowledge.
I started painting because I was driven by the need to understand myself. And still today, when I go in my studio and stand in front of the white canvas, that blankness ask me: who are you? 
Brushstroke on brushstroke, layer upon layer, every moment brings its emotions: enthusiasm, doubt, discouragement, hope, joy... everything is part of the experience, everything is part of me, everything is welcomed with compassion and kindness.

Since I was a child, the beauty of my homeland surrounded me: nature and art seemed to blend their colors and shapes together.

Growing up I learned to know the centuries of history that were behind me and to recognize myself in the art that they gave us, traveling in Italy and in Europe. And today this experience continues with the artists from around the world whose path I follow.
For this reason my paintings live on the memory of that past and this present, and silently dialogue with those colors and those shapes. Because, however modest, every brushstroke cannot escape the suggestion of what remained in our eyes and in our mind.
And so self-knowledge finds a shape in a collective dimension that is beyond us.

Continuous experimentation is the distinctive trait that has always guided me: from my first workshop until today, I've never stopped growing and acquiring new skills, always remaining open to the opportunities that open up to me.

My paintings are in private collections in Europe (Italy, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Greece, Bulgaria, Denmark), North and South America (United States, Canada, Brazil), Asia and Oceania (Japan, Singapore, Australia).

EXHIBITIONS

17 September - 9 October 2022
Ars in Tempore, Abbazia di Santa Maria delle Carceri - Carceri (Padova)

3 December 2021 - 6 January 2022
Solo Show Echoes, Lo Speziale Locanda, Verona

April 2018
Group Show Arca di Noè, ode alla animale gentilezza, Galleria Giustizia Vecchia, Verona

May 2017
Group Show Arte in piazza, Grezzana, Verona

October - November 2016
Solo Show Acque e terre, Galleria Incorniciarte, Verona

April 2016
Group Show Come piume, Galleria Incorniciarte, Verona

March - April 2014
Group Show Trame di foglie verso il cielo, Galleria Incorniciarte, Verona