Tatyana Cristina

Tatyana Cristina (Lisbon, 2001) is a visual artist with a degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. She lives and works in Lisbon. Her work is primarily developed through painting, using abstraction to explore personal experiences, emotions, and thoughts that are in constant flux. Drawing from visual memories, daily fascinations, and inner restlessness, she constructs an imaginary world where the surreal, the ironic, and the critical intersect. In her works, abstract forms give way to ambiguous landscapes and figures, balancing chance and control. The process is intuitive, combining references gathered from everyday life such as image clippings and objects. Her most recent project emerged from an encounter with 18th–19th century surgical kits. Marked by the passage of time, these kits stand as silent witnesses to a medical practice that oscillated between ingenuity and brutality. The visible wear from intensive use bestows upon them a singular beauty. The instruments housed within — scalpels, probes, forceps, hooks, pliers, amputation saws, syringes, eyelid retractors, among many others — form a disturbing choreography of shapes. The metallic gleam of the blades and the meticulous design of each piece evoke both surgical precision and the violence inherent in the medical acts of earlier times, where technical ingenuity was inextricably linked to pain and the vulnerability of the human body. This project explores the intersection of science and art, unveiling hidden dialogues between technique and expression. Both medicine and visual arts share a common gesture: the search for balance — the former within the body, the latter within the mind. The precision of the scalpel and the brush are not so different; both operate on living surfaces, transforming pain and healing into creation.