Cristina Starr is an artist whose work delves into the visceral terrain of human instinct, desire, and vulnerability. Through a distinctive visual language that straddles Magical Realism and Surrealism, Starr explores what it means to be human, while never letting us forget the animal instincts that simmer beneath the surface. Her artistic inquiry is driven by questions of love, violence, greed, alienation, and longing, rendered with both tenderness and confrontation. In her world, beauty is never just beautiful; it is also dangerous, fragile, and often deceiving.
With a rich academic background in Religious Studies, Social Work, and Fine Art from globally acclaimed institutions Brown, NYU, and Goldsmiths, Starr brings a deeply intellectual and psychological lens to her practice. This multidimensional education underpins her symbolic approach to image-making. Nature is a recurring presence in her paintings–not simply as background but as metaphor. Birds, flowers, skeletons and sea creatures are not just aesthetic choices; they are surrogates for emotional and existential states. Her work often reads like modern fables or visual poetry, dense with meaning and charged with emotional tension.
One of her standout pieces, The Lovesick Student–currently on view in An Oak Show at Art And Talking Gallery in Chipping Norton–is emblematic of her practice. Part of her Nightingale and Rose series inspired by Oscar Wilde’s tale, the painting is a meditation on heartbreak and the futility of intellectual mastery when faced with raw emotion. A Nightingale perches in a high tree, watching a sorrowful young boy below—one hand on the tree, the other on his chest. Through delicate ink work and watercolor, Starr contrasts the innocence of the scene with a sense of dramatic foreboding. The interior of the house visible through the windows, with its small bed and bookshelf, offers a psychological intimacy that blurs the line between the character’s world and Starr’s own inner landscape.
The painting’s palette—vermillion, sky blue, earthy greens—echoes the emotional highs and lows of love, while subtle transitions in color gesture toward transformation, sacrifice, and the primal pull of desire. As with much of St
arr’s work, there is a surface calm that belies deeper emotional turbulence.
This duality is present throughout her broader body of work. In Sculpting a Star, a woman stands on the remains of a massive skull as red stars cascade from the sky–perhaps a metaphor for rebirth or spiritual striving. Casting off the Cape, meanwhile, presents a gender-fluid figure emerging from a blood-red sea filled with disembodied eyes, as a stingray-like entity looms behind. Her art veers between Surrealism and Magical Realism, with hints of Frida Kahlo’s, Goya and Dali. The themes are mythic, almost biblical, but never moralizing. Starr does not judge; she observes, reveals, and invites reflection.
Starr has exhibited widely across the UK in recent years, with shows in London, Brighton, Edinburgh, and beyond. Her work resonates across contexts—whether in an experimental group show or a quiet countryside gallery—because it speaks to something primal and eternal. Cristina Starr is not simply painting stories; she is crafting allegories for the modern psyche.
Cristina Starr is exhibiting in ‘An Oak Show’ at Art & Talking gallery in Chipping Norton until 26th July, 2025.
