Cristine Balarine is a Brazilian painter and textile artist who has lived and worked across London, Abu Dhabi and Florence, now based in the Aeolian Islands, Sicily. She holds a Master's degree in Architecture from The Bartlett, University College London; her training in Florentine Renaissance art history sits against an inheritance of Indigenous, African and European family history and material traditions. Cristine's paintings and textiles reveal lyrical and unreliable narratives of architectures and natural landscapes; painted realms where the local Aeolian Islands' remoteness, its weather and its extreme seasons act as direct constructors of colour, texture and form.
Cristine's work has been presented internationally, including a exhibition and auction at Sotheby's London in 2024, curated by Dr. Madeleine Haddon of the Victoria and Albert Museum. She was the first prize winner of ArtBAM, a competition run by the Munich-based gallery Konsum163; a finalist in both the London and Florence Biennials in 2023 and BAAM Berlin 2025. Her work was published in art magazines and catalogues in the US and in Europe, and her solo exhibitions have been presented at the Lighthouse Museum, the baroque church Chiesa delle Anime del Purgatorio and in niche exhibition spaces in Italy. She has also presented work at World Art Dubai and Saatchi Art's The Other Art Fair.
Cristine's interest in a collaborative practice moves between painting, textiles, sound and scent. She has worked with musicians, composers and DJs, and her ongoing project with Berlin-based OWN! Collective sets painting and music inside the same space, where neither functions as backdrop to the other. Likewise, a recent commission of multi-sensorial textiles inspired by specific bespoke scents by boutique artistic perfume Eolie Parfumes invite for a closer, intimate relationship with the work through scent and touch. Cristine is also a co-founder of The Non-Museum Project, a guerrilla, all-female initiative that takes over transitional or abandoned spaces around the globe, transforming them into spaces for making and experiencing art on the collective's own terms.
