Violeta Maya
Spain, 1993
Violeta Maya’s relationship with painting flows decisively because it is intimate and, in a way, functional in her life: far from explicitly alluding to current affairs or seeking a justifying discourse, Maya approaches the pictorial act as a genuine and personal form of escape, one that allows her to break away from the exhausting and confusing cycle of everyday life and the overdose of stimuli and images of our world.
It is through painting that Maya can consciously manage and focus her attention. It is an almost vital link with her environment. Her approach is not heavy, but rhythmic. It is not premeditated nor brainy, but rather sprouts spontaneously and, at the same time, is capable of condensing long feelings and sensations.
Violeta Maya arrives at her studio with colours in mind, then soaks the large canvases in water. Once wet, she lays them flat on the ground, and there the countdown begins. The canvases dry at different speeds, depending on the month and time of day. They usually take a few hours. Once dry, they no longer welcome the paint in the same way: it is the humidity of the canvas that offers surprise, branches out the brushstrokes, blurs the colours, amplifies the stains and explodes the pigments. Violeta has found a method that radically incorporates the will of the support itself: it is its reaction to the water and the temperature that irreversibly marks the work’s deadlines and its final result.
In other words, there is a high component of controlled chance in her creative process. While painting, she puts into play different doses of intuition and risk. It is not surprising that Violeta is a great lover of jazz, and she listens to this genre frequently. Like jazz, her work is born from a commitment to contingency that embraces an aesthetic of the imperfect and grows happily with this force.
Her relationship with form and colour is not rational either. Maya paints as a form of meditation; through colours, stains and the balance between them, the artist captures her emotional state in the immediate present and freezes it in time. A translation of emotion into form that can only take place in that state of alertness and perceptive lucidity rooted in the here and now. In turn, at times, there is a subtle and unconscious exercise of remembrance in her work: sometimes the paintings are linked to a somewhat precise memory or sensation that she retrieves from past experiences. Each work thus encapsulates a certain emotional landscape.
Every once in a while, painting is increasingly discarded as an anachronistic art form, little relevant today. However, artists like Violeta Maya offer the opposite approach: in the face of the infinite modes of distraction that we encounter throughout the day, painting keeps coming back and becoming a kind of «technology» (Rugoff, R) – a medium that, due to its inherent qualities, is capable of reacting to this frenetic rhythm, and proposing an alternative one.
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS
Solo Show, Nicelle Beauchene, New York, US
Solo Show, Gallery BR, Tetbury, UK (2023)
¿Verde Azulado o Azul Verdoso?, Palau de Casavells, Girona, Spain (2022)
A mi nadie me preguntó si quería nacer, pero bueno, aquí estoy, Alzueta Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2022)
Solo Presentation, Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2021)
Entre Col y Col, Lechuga, Carrasco Art Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2021)
O, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery, Aranda del Duero, Spain (2020)
Present, NB7 Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2019)
Cósmicaa, NB7 Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2017)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
“A Site”, Alzueta Gallery Madrid, Madrid, España (2023)
Árbol de Familia, Alzueta Gallery Madrid, Spain (2022)
JÖY, Garna Art Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2021)
BOLS Show, Aprestadora Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2020)
Colectiva, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery, Aranda del Duero, Spain (2019)
ArtFarm Pilastro Residency, Verona, Italy (2019)
Formas, NB7 Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2018)
ES Fascinante, Galeria Espacio Valverde, Madrid, Spain (2018)
ART FAIRS
ESTAMPA Art Fair, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery. Madrid, Spain (2021)
Art Madrid Art Fair, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2021)
ESTAMPA Art Fair, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2021)
CONTEXT Art Miami, NB7 Gallery, Miami, U.S (2019)
London Art Fair, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery. London, Uk (2019)
London Art Fair Hampsted, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery. London, Uk (2019)
The Other Art Fair Brooklyn. New York, U.S (2019)
FLECHA Art Fair Mallorca 2019, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2019)
Brussels Art Fair, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery. Brussels, Belgium (2019)
FLECHA Art Fair Madrid 2019. Madrid, Spain (2019)
FLECHA Art Fair Bilbao 2018, Bilbao, Spain (2018)
FLECHA Art Fair Mallorca 2018, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2018)
FEBRUARY – FLECHA Art Fair Madrid 2018, Madrid, Spain (2018)
FLECHA Art Fair Bilbao 2017, Bilbao, Spain (2017)
FLECHA Art Fair Mallorca 2017, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2017)
FLECHA Art Fair Madrid 2017, Madrid, Spain (2017)