CRISTINA BANBAN: LORQUIANAS

PERROTIN Paris is pleased to present Lorquianas, a solo exhibition of new large-scale paintings and works on paper by Cristina BanBan, the Spanish-born, New York-based artist’s fourth show with the gallery.

October 18 – December 20, 2025

Lorquianas is BanBan’s most ambitious project to date. It was initiated through an invitation for the artist to engage with the life and legacy of Federico García Lorca in his hometown of Granada. The poet’s enduring presence in Andalusian cultural memory—and his emotionally charged, archetype-rich characters in works such as Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Blood Wedding—form the conceptual foundation of the exhibition.

At the heart of Lorquianas is a series of large-scale paintings that respond to the emotional and symbolic complexity of Lorca’s universe. In Yerma (all works 2025), BanBan draws from Lorca’s 1934 tragedy of the same name, in which the protagonist—trapped by cultural norms around womanhood and fertility—is slowly undone by her childlessness. BanBan translates this tension through two interdependent figures: one grieving and slumped, the other upright and statuesque. Set against intersecting fields of green, brown, and blue, the figures contrast in scale and tone yet remain tethered by a shared vulnerability. Their relationship evokes not just maternal longing, but also emotional duality, repression, and resignation—core themes in both the play and the painting.

Luto y ajuar explores a generational dynamic also central to Lorca’s vision of Spanish womanhood, particularly in The House of Bernarda Alba (1936), a play where five daughters live under the suffocating authority of their mourning mother. BanBan’s canvas stages a similarly charged contrast: older women dressed in black sit facing younger ones, whose gestures hover between confrontation and deference. Vibrant stockings and domestic props—red and yellow chairs, bare thighs—create a visual tension between solemnity and sensuality, echoing Lorca’s interest in how tradition and desire collide within the home.