Christina Leigh

My work explores how places become part of the guest experience and remain with us long after a journey ends. I create abstract cartography paintings inspired by destinations, using maps, photographs, local landscapes, cultural details, and sensory experiences to capture the distinctive character of a place. Streets, shorelines, waterways, and geographic boundaries provide the underlying structure for each work.

Through layered acrylic and oil paint, translucent glazes, expressive marks, texture, and metallic elements, I transform recognizable geography into atmospheric compositions. My approach is influenced by Julius von Haast, Thomas Moran, J. M. W. Turner, and Andrew Tischler, particularly their attention to landscape, light, atmosphere, and sense of place.

Within hospitality spaces, my work becomes a form of visual placemaking. Each painting can reflect the surrounding landscape, neighborhood, history, architecture, or experiences unique to a destination, giving hotels an opportunity to connect their interiors more meaningfully to their location.

The finished work exists between map and memory, creating a sense of discovery for guests while offering a lasting visual connection to the places they have traveled.

Christina's education brings together studio art, design, art history, and analytical research. She began her formal training at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts in a conservatory-style visual arts program before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Graphic Design from Florida Southern College, with additional study in Art History. Her education included painting, design, visual analysis, museum studies, art history, and exhibition practices. She later earned a Master of Science in Marketing Data Analytics and Research from Southern New Hampshire University, strengthening the research and analytical approach that now informs her abstract cartography practice.

Christina Robinson’s exhibition history reflects her ongoing exploration of landscape, memory, place, and abstraction. Her work has been selected for international juried exhibitions including Landscape and Places presented by Women in Arts Network, Abstract Zone 2026 presented by Exhibizone, and Extinction 2026: A Planet in Fragile Balance presented by Gallerium. In 2026, she presented The Places We Carry at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus, bringing together paintings inspired by New Zealand, Savannah, and Sevilla. Across these exhibitions, her abstract cartography practice invites viewers to consider how landscapes become connected to personal experience and the places we continue to carry with us.