A woman is painting a detailed landscape on paper at a wooden desk, with an easel displaying a mountain scene behind her. Various art supplies, including a palette and paintbrushes, are on the desk.

Influenced by both the atmospheric sensitivity of Romantic landscape painting and the compositional restraint of East Asian screens, Hobbs builds depth through layered washes and controlled mark-making.

Her work explores how memory reshapes what we see — simplifying, compressing, and distilling landscape into a quiet visual language.

She is currently exhibiting in Northern California. Select commissions available.

Sebastopol, California

Cristina Hobbs is a painter based in rural Northern California. Surrounded by vineyards, fog, coastline, and open sky, her work begins with direct observation of the landscape but moves toward reduction.

Rather than describing a specific location, she translates place into layered planes of color, softened edges, and restrained gesture. Hills flatten into tonal bands. Reflections dissolve. Sky becomes atmosphere rather than backdrop.

The paintings hover between recognition and abstraction, emphasizing structure and spatial tension over detail.

A brown curly-haired dog looking up at the camera surrounded by open art and photography books on a concrete floor.