I first experienced Cristina’s paintings at her 1997 exhibition ‘The Carnival of the Animals’. I was 15 years old, with little knowledge or interest in art. I vividly remember walking into the Pump House Gallery in London’s Battersea Park – I stopped for a moment and, immediately enthralled, spun on my feet, trying to take in all the paintings in the room. I stopped on Sailing Through the Seventh Sea, captivated by the boldness of its colours and moved by the shared journey of this unlikely collection of travellers: a lion, a monkey, an elephant, a bird, the luminescent stingray and graceful octopus, and the curious and playful school of green and yellow fish coming along for the ride. In all the years that have passed since that day, whenever I have thought of Cristina and of her paintings, it is the image of Sailing Through the Seventh Sea that I have held in my mind, and the feelings of wonder and joy of that beautiful day at the Pump House Gallery.