Cristina Coelho
‘To feel deeply and express it honestly is a quiet form of rebellion.’
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Cristina Coelho
‘To feel deeply and express it honestly is a quiet form of rebellion.’
contact
Cristina (b. 1999, Galicia) is a self-taught painter whose work focuses on emotion, memory, and female portraiture. Her artistic practice began during a period spent living abroad, in a city that marked a turning point in her personal and creative life. Being away from familiar structures gave her a sense of freedom and clarity, allowing her to reconnect with a more essential version of herself. From that moment on, painting became not just a medium, but a necessity.
Her work grows out of inner emotional states. Each painting starts from a feeling that seeks form and presence. Rather than telling specific stories, Cristina transforms lived experiences into emotional spaces. Her figures are not portraits of real individuals, but emotional constructions—faces that act as mirrors, holding vulnerability, tension, and silence.
Female portraiture plays a central role in her practice. She is drawn to ambiguity and to moments that resist clear definition, where identity begins to blur and emotion takes over. Her figures often exist in a suspended state, between introspection and exposure, strength and fragility. The gaze is an important element in her work: direct but restrained, inviting connection without explanation.
For Cristina, painting is not a form of escape, but a space for observation. It allows her to look inward with honesty and give shape to what cannot always be expressed through words. Her paintings do not aim to offer answers, but presence.
She works primarily with oil paint, a medium she adopted intuitively from the beginning. As a self-taught artist, her technique has developed through observation, repetition, and instinct. She values the slowness of oil painting—its ability to build layers, atmosphere, and emotional depth over time. In her work, color and light are not just formal choices, but emotional tools that shape how the image is felt.
Cristina’s practice exists between intimacy and distance. Her paintings invite closeness, but resist possession. They create a quiet space where personal experience and shared emotion meet, allowing the viewer to recognize something of themselves without being told what to feel.
Press
Cristina Coelho y sus viajes no contados, Don Chicote Magazine (2025)
Cristina Coelho expón Éveil en Santiago: unha viaxe visual polas emocións e os silencios, Diario de Santiago (2025)
Éveil, Planomato (2025)
Glass of apologies by crispintando, Novus Arte Community (2025)
Cristina Coelho nos cuenta sus sensaciones (...), Don Chicote Magazine (2025)
Cristina Coelho: 15 óleos que apostan pola esencia, TVG, La 1, TV, Galicia, Spain
Exhibitions
Fundación Araguaney, Puente de Culturas, Éveil, 2025 (Galicia, Spain)
Abstrata Gallery, Unspoken Journeys, 2025 (Madrid, Spain)