Cristine Balarine

: Sept. 2024

: 4

Italy

  • with the painting 'My Head in Shambles'

    with the painting 'My Head in Shambles'

    19 September 2024
    At the studio in Sicily

    At the studio in Sicily

    _an art diary page_ Working at the studio today deeply involved in the fluidity of the painting process, pouring and layering paint instinctively, letting the colors soak into the canvas to meet together in hard and soft transitions. This big piece of fabric laid on the floor gives me space, peace, easiness. There’s a sense of openness as I let the paint guide me, allowing chance to shape the forms that emerge. At the same time, the rawness comes through in the personal marks and gestures—scribbled lines and fragmented thoughts that feel intimate, like fleeting moments captured on the surface. I love orange and blue together, I can’t help but smile when I see these colours planted side-by-side. I feel the autumn’s colours and mood coming through the studio, as long sleeves cover my skin instead of the usual shorts and mini blouse. As I wait for the paint to dry, I wonder about the ever-shifting balance between vulnerability and confidence as they crystallise on the canvas through the exploration of color and form, as rationality and spontaneity take turns leading the flow of the paint and the scribbles populate all over this once empty piece of fabric - my diary.

    19 September 2024

    live painting session in the UAE desert

    This videos shows the painting process of the painting ’The Buried Village of Al Madam’, which was conceived at the UAE desert at the abandoned village known as Al Madam Buried Town. This painting was rendered in two stages: Firstly, intuitive, non-planned layers were composed under the sound of live music. In a second stage, highly rationalised, memory-driven set of layers were added. The artist is fascinated with Al Madam village’s Spirit of the Place (or Genius Loci). How many memories are buried in this place, along with its architecture? Whilst the little town is indeed in ruins, surely for those who lived in the houses, had breakfast in the morning and went to the Mosque every day, their village is alive and whole, in their most treasured memories. The artist aims to stitch the residents’ fragmented identities through a multi-layered composition, overlaid with references to the late village, typical Bedouin patterns found in textiles and elements of Islamic architecture. Indeed, evocations of the current ruins, full of graffiti and houses in decay also find a place in the painting. This is the artist’s own memorial landscape claiming its territory, now part of her own private identity overlapping with the Genius Loci of this village. Layers are covered and uncovered, pushed out and pushed back, some sections are exposed and some are left totally hidden under many layers of paint. This is a tribute to the individual and collective memories buried deep inside our own private, inner landscapes.

    18 September 2024
    At the Abu Dhabi studio, 2023

    At the Abu Dhabi studio, 2023

    18 September 2024