"We've got to ask Cristina for an illustration" was one of the things most frequently heard in the editorial office of the Público daily newspaper whenever we needed to add a different dimension to an article. A drawing of Cristina's was pure luxury, our luxury, a kind of caviar and champagne to whet the reader's appetite and make him surrender to the fact that Público had conquered a place in the Portuguese daily press ten years ago.
Back then, computers were almost magical objects, little boxes of surprises that we wanted to explore and reach beyond the excitement of its technical prowess. We wanted - and Cristina wanted - to make the most of this new power-house of marvels to produce a newspaper that was not only technologically more up-to-date, faster, freer and more effective, but also one that was more imaginative, more creative, more unexpected - and why not? - more fun.
The entertaining side of journalism was playfully reflected in Cristina's illustrations, she was our very own Alice in Wonderland, who allowed us to go beyond the looking- glass of text, pictures and the usual cartoons and step into a dimension which is so difficult to describe that, perhaps because of this, I'll risk using just one word: poetic. And we are truly talking about a poetic dimension of journalism when we look at one of Cristina's illustrations.
She doesn't just illustrate or graphically comment on a text or title, neither does she address more or less literally or ironically the events, situations, news and articles. Cristina always adds something that reaches out beyond the confining and expeditious codes of reporting that people usually associate with journalism. It is not only the extreme geometric elegance of her outlines, but also the subtle magic with which she imbues a detail, and which is not at first perceptible.
As our eyes grow polluted and coarsened by the increasing trivialization of images in all areas of the press and audio-visual media, the almost child-like purity and fantasy of Cristina's illustrations, the way her "trouvailles" take flight, often bewilders and overwhelms us. (...)

written for Illustrating Days, 2001 Cristina’s solo exhibition