Bio

Christina Habibi is an abstract painter born in Tehran, Iran, and based in Athens, Georgia. She has maintained a studio practice for over three decades.

Her paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and recognized through juried exhibitions, publications, and awards. Her work is rooted in abstraction, with an ongoing interest in gesture, language, transformation, and the relationships that develop between forms.

Habibi works from her studio in Athens, where she continues to develop an evolving body of abstract paintings.

Statement

My art explores relationships: between language and image, gesture and intention, memory and the present. I make it for people who enjoy living with questions instead of answers.

Every painting begins with physical gesture rather than a plan. I let my body lead while my mind stays present, responding instead of directing. The first mark sets something in motion. Forms emerge, collide, separate, transform, and sometimes disappear, with each decision changing what becomes possible next.

I think of these paintings as abstract narratives. I've long been drawn to the underlying structure of the hero's journey, not as a story to illustrate, but as a pattern of encounter, conflict, and transformation. I don't assign characters or fixed meanings to the forms. I'm interested in the sense that something has happened, is happening, or is about to happen, without defining exactly what it is.

Words enter the paintings as I work, sometimes echoing what's happening and sometimes belonging to another conversation. Language, form, color, and texture shift in relation to each other, allowing recognition to come close and then recede. For me, a painting succeeds when it remains open, inviting curiosity and continuing to change through sustained looking.