VIOLETA MAYA
b. 1993, Spain”For me, painting is a hyper-sensory exercise. It is the way in which I concentrate my attention on the present moment, focusing on the textures, movements and rhythm of the brushstrokes, the expanding paint or the infinite sea of shades of the same colour. This way I manage, for a few moments, to abstract myself from life in a century saturated with images, information and productivity; as if it were a kind of meditation.
That is why it is very important to me that this present moment is captured on the canvas, and only this moment. That’s why all the paintings are painted at once, in a specific moment that remains there without being altered later when the canvas dries.
I like the painting to surprise me; to leave some elements to chance. That’s why I work with very watery paint, it is as if I let the matter do its work and I can have a sort of conversation with it, because often the shapes created on the canvas are something I can not control, and they act as a starting point to create the rest of the composition of the painting.
The titles are mostly old Spanish sayings, or popular phrases that reflect something relevant to the moment in which I painted them, or something that they express to me when I look at them once they are finished, because of their composition, colours…
A successful composition is one where I have been able to stop painting in a short time. Less is more. My favourites are those in which with the least number of elements I manage to make them work. I am also obsessed with exploring the changes between halftones of the same colour. The small differences are not so visible at first sight, if not to a more observant eye.”
Violeta Maya
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