Born in Milan, Italy, Cristina Metelli studied at art school as a teenager, before immigrating to Adelaide, South Australia, where she continued her artistic education, earning a Bachelor Degree in Visual Art (Honours) from Adelaide Central School of Art.
Her art practice is based on making abstract paintings inspired by the natural landscape, investigating the extent to which human lives are entwined with the natural environment.
“I spend as much time as possible walking in nature, connecting to the land and everything in it. While walking helps my body, nature soothes my mind, and keeps me in the present moment. The feeling of being embraced by nature is nurturing and invigorating — it helps me feel connected to the world. When in the studio, through an intuitive process, I begin depicting feelings experienced in the natural landscape through the material qualities of paint. Gestural paint applications and colour relationship are used to express my emotional response through sensations of tension and release.” - Cristina Metelli
Cristina has exhibited widely and was recently the winner of the AGES Art Prize 2021/22, QLD. Her paintings were selected for the ‘Art at T1’ exhibition at the Adelaide International Airport 2020. Most recently, she was a finalist in the Heysen Art Prize; the Adelaide Hills Landscape Art Prize, Hahndorf Academy; The Fleurieu Biennale (Artists of The Fleurieu); Adelaide Park Lands Art Prize; Emma Hack Art Prize, and (a number of times) the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, South Australian Museum.
About Cristina’s 2023 series of works — ‘Light on Land and Water’:
“The inspiration for my abstract paintings starts with walking or being in nature, absorbing the restorative effects of each experience. Once in the studio, I start painting intuitively, reflecting my experience by recalling the memory of place and my sensorial response to it.
In this new body of work, my focus is on how light is affected by the natural surfaces upon which it shines, such as water, land and vegetation, and the way it is partially reflected or absorbed. My painting style — as per usual — is intuitive, expressing my experience with many different paint application techniques and bold use of colour.” - Cristina Metelli
