BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Born in Rome in 1961 under the sign of Pisces with Leo ascendant, Maria Cristina Martini maintains this dualism of an imaginative and artistic nature as opposed to a strong and aggressive temper throughout her production.
A dualism that leads her to frequently propose solar subjects with a passionate Mediterranean soul, but also tougher images of Celtic inspiration.
A dualism that characterizes not only the artistic production but rather the whole existence of Maria Cristina Martini.
Graduated in 1987 in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures in the enthusiastic perspective of working around the world (and travels remain one of her main passions) she begins to work in the literary art sector, initially as journalist, then as author, and finally founding her own publishing house, the “MMC Edizioni“, in which she goes on working also as writer .
It is in a second moment of her life that she also approaches visual arts and, in particular, painting on porcelain, training at the Roman school/laboratory of Paola Cenciarelli which she attends for seven years.
She also participates in numerous specialization courses and develops over time a personal style, of considerable visual impact; a style in constant evolution which is enriched every day thanks to the use of innovative techniques and tireless experimentation.
In 2011 and 2012 she managed an Art Gallery in the historical center of Rome, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum; a space of art and culture called “38 MMC Gallery” in which she exhibited not only her artistic works and the books of her publishing house, but also works by other artists with a particular focus on the emerging ones, which she has set up specific exhibitions for.
The pictorial activity suffered an interruption of  a few years due to a serious accident in the left arm that required multiple surgeries.
Arm mobility is now back in order and activity has recently been resumed.
The artist lives and works in her home town and exhibits in various italian locations.

STYLE (critical notes by Cinzia Martini)

The style of Maria Cristina Martini’s works can be defined CHROMATIC ECLECTISM, meaning a very personal style, in which different materials and sharp colours are brought together, in a dissonant way too, using them to represent periodizations and relative subjects with a strong anthropological mark.
The artistic production follows a precise formal structure, moving on the space-time Cartesian axes of human history. Consequently, representative choice and execution method range geographically, moving frequently in ancient tradition and ancient civilizations areas, but also drawing from periods with a strong epic and mythologically mysterious connotation. In fact, we frequently come across the figuration of a typically Mediterranean and Islamic solarity, but also into the worrying mist of a hidden nook of the Northern Europe. And when it seems to have located the style “roots” in a placid shelter in the old continent, the path changes and we are facing with wonder to mysteries of Mesoamerican civilizations or dazzled by shining of burning sand in the African desert.
TRAVELLING, RESEARCH and THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE are the three fixed points of Martini’s life and creative work, but there is a fourth one that is able to contain in itself the other ones, addressing all the representative choices: the DECORATIVISM. Meaning not the love for graceful “filling up”, but the recognition that, through the decorative choice, the handicraft expressed by all the ancient civilizations has risen at aesthetic value of forming art.
Characteristic of the artist is an obstinate will to play with the light element. This is evident considering the preference for colours variety, and overall for a widespread luminescence in the abundant use of gold, platinum and metallics. From almost the whole works flows out a natural inclination to search for PRECIOUSNESS, either objective, as in the case of materials, or subjective, as in the shape; sometimes it goes towards the sacrality of image, vaguely tasting like “Byzantine”, that hovers towards the majesty of ancestral civilizations, no matter whether classic or modern, because such distinctions are only categories, to which the universal relation history-human being-nature doesn’t answer to.
It’s obvious and completely justified, therefore, the other most important characteristic of Maria Cristina Martini production, or rather WANTING TO AMAZE AND TO EXCITE throughout what she enjoys herself to define “special effects”; effects that often require long executive procedures at high precision and numerous baking of materials, but from which it’s not possible to get out when the hope is to play upon audience’s wonder-strings.