In Celebration of Thirty Years: Cristina BanBan Donates to the Rema Hort Mann Fund

Fleshy hues pool and spill across canvas. Exaggerated forms move with unrestrained fluidity, figures rendered in the vocabulary of paint itself: where figuration dissolves into abstraction, and abstraction finds its way back to the body. This is the world of Cristina BanBan, whose bold and expressive work centres the female form with a kind of urgent generosity.

In recognition of three decades of transformative work, BanBan has given her 2026 painting 'Duo' to benefit the Rema Hort Mann Fund, joining artists and collectors in honouring the organisation's landmark milestone and the inauguration of its Artists Living with Cancer Grant.

A Gift Within a Legacy

The Rema Hort Mann Fund has spent thirty years sustaining artists at moments when their practice intersects with the practical and emotional demands of serious illness. The newly established Artists Living with Cancer Grant extends this commitment, offering vital support when care becomes the foremost consideration. For thirty years, the Fund has operated from a simple and profound principle: that the artist's voice must not be silenced by circumstance, and that resources directed at the right moment can preserve not only a body of work but the capacity to create at all.

BanBan's donation sits within a broader movement of artists supporting artists. The act itself, in pledging work to the benefit auction, carries symbolic weight. It affirms the community that sustains creative practice, the reciprocal nature of artistic generosity, and the understanding that patronage and support take many forms. When an artist of recognised vision gives in this way, the gift honours both the recipient and the giver.

The Work: 'Duo'

BanBan's practice is rooted in the expressive potential of paint itself. Her figures emerge and recede, caught between the figurative and the abstract. Rendered in fleshy tones, her protagonists possess a kind of bodily presence while simultaneously dissolving into pure gesture and colour. There is no distance in her work, no cool remove. Instead, there is an intimacy born of paint applied with intention and freedom alike.

'Duo' participates in this vocabulary. Two forms in dialogue, occupying the same canvas with an ease that speaks to BanBan's confident hand and her understanding of composition as a lived conversation between artist and material.

The Auction

The Rema Hort Mann Fund's 30th Anniversary Online Benefit Auction runs from 19 to 28 October in New York. It is an invitation to participate in an inheritance of support and solidarity, to recognise that the most enduring gifts are those that make room for others to continue their work.

Acts of artistic generosity create a record of values. They mark, across time, what communities have chosen to cherish and sustain. BanBan's gift does this: it speaks to the thirty years that have passed, to the artists who have been supported, and to the future of practice itself.

Key Facts

• Artist: Cristina BanBan
• Work: 'Duo' (2026)
• Beneficiary: Rema Hort Mann Fund 30th Anniversary Online Benefit Auction
• Location: New York
• Dates: 19–28 October
• Auction House: Phillips

The Simply Luxury View

For collectors who understand that patronage extends beyond acquisition, this benefit auction represents something distinct: the opportunity to support institutional mission through the acquisition of contemporary work. The Rema Hort Mann Fund's emphasis on the Artists Living with Cancer Grant introduces a new dimension to its three decades of work, addressing both the practical and existential challenges that serious illness presents to artistic practice.

BanBan's donation speaks to a broader ecosystem within which serious collectors operate: one in which giving, buying and collective commitment are bound together. This is not merely a transaction but a participation in the values that sustain artistic life.

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