Violeta Maya

About

Madrid, Spain, 1993. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain.

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.

CV

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Palau de Casavells, Alzueta Gallery, Girona, Spain (forthcoming) (2025)
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York City, USA (forthcoming) (2025)
Artist Spotlight, Olivia Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico (2024)
Precisamente porque el rosa me incomoda, Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2023)
Todo en constante cambio y yo aquí observando, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York City, USA (2022)
¿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)
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)
Cósmica, NB7 Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2017)

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Dream Plane, Fernberger Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2024)
A Site, Alzueta Gallery Madrid, Madrid, Spain (2023)
Árbol de Familia, Alzueta Gallery Madrid, Spain (2022)
JÖY, Garna Art Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2021)
BOLD, Aprestadora Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2020)
Siempre así, Rodrigo Juarranz Gallery, Aranda del Duero, Spain (2019)
ArtFarm Pilastro Residency, Verona, Italy (2018)
ES Fascinante, Galeria Espacio Valverde, Madrid, Spain (2015)
Central Saint Martins Degree Show, London, UK (2014)
Elaborate, Lethby Gallery, London, UK (2014)
The Delete Show, 71a Gallery, London, UK (2014)

SELECTED ART FAIRS
ZONAMACO, Alzueta Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico (forthcoming) (2025)
ART BASEL MIAMI, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, Miami, Florida (forthcoming)
KIAF, Alzueta Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (2024)
Felix Art Fair, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2024)
ZONAMACO, Alzueta Gallery, CDMX, Mexico (2024)
KIAF, Alzueta Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (2023)

RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
Manoir de la Moisse Residency, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France (forthcoming) (2024)
Alzueta Artist Residency, Catalonia, Spain (2023)
Artfarm Pilastro Residency, Verona, Italy (2019)
Royal College of Art, London, UK (2014)
Zimoun Studio, Bern, Switzerland (2014)

AWARDS
Martin Miller’s Gin Art Commission, Affordable Art Fair, London, UK (2021)
El Flechazo Award, FLECHA Art Fair, Madrid, Spain (2020)
El Flechazo Award, FLECHA Art Fair, Madrid, Spain (2018)
First Prize, The Big White Wall Competition, Central Saint Martins, London, UK (2014)

PRESS
Gómez-Upegui, Salomé. «10 Contemporary Women Artists Channeling Helen Frankenthaler’s Abstract Expressionism», Artsy Editorial, Aug. 23. (2024)
Gómez-Upegui, Salomé. «A Spanish Artist’s Meditation on Feminity», New York Times T Magazine, Dec. 7. (2023)
«5 Artists on Our Radar in March 2023», Artsy, Mar. 3. (2023)
«10 Young Artists to Follow», L’Officiel Korea, Oct. (2022)
Lichterwaldt, Daniel. «Interview with Violeta Maya», Les Nouveaux Riches, Aug. 2. (2022)
Smith, Ellie. «Violeta Maya and Persiis Hajiyanni on Art out of Isolation», Country & Town House, Sep. 15. (2021)
«Meet the Artists: Fluid Form», Affordable Art Fair, Oct. 21. (2021)
«Violeta McGuire, the winning artist of FLECHA 2019, exhibits her art in motion in Madrid», FLECHA, Oct. 24. (2019)
«Meet the Artist Violeta McGuire», MadGirls Magazine. (2017)