Todo en constante cambio y yo aquí observando

Press Release

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to present Todo en constante cambio y yo aquí observándolo, the first New York solo exhibition by Madrid-based artist Violeta Maya. As a direct evolution of Maya’s previous investigations, this new series of work explores time and movement through painting, and celebrates both the singularity of each piece and the unity they create together.

Violeta Maya’s practice is deeply informed by her studies in interaction and moving image. Her process in painting is intersected by a strong sense of chronology and a paradoxical belief in chance. The former is structured by sequential thinking; an awareness of the speed at which elements unfold. The latter by intuition; surrendering to potential failure. This exhibition departs from an initial decision: to make a series of ten works. In response to this measured framework, a visual sequence smoothly opens up. Each painting arises in continuity from the other, defying a sense of beginning and end, and placing the viewer in the center of a circular landscape.

The vigor of Maya’s painting and its tempered radiation arises from a desire to capture an explosion from a slow, unprejudiced, and almost faithful deference to time. Maya has developed a disciplined capacity to wait and, with it, a tolerance for failure and the unforeseen.

Following Terry Smith’s theory around art and contemporaneity, it is precisely this capacity of being with time that makes her work contemporary. Endless time in the studio waiting for her colors to appear, a process establishing a conversation with its own result, and then extending an invitation to the audience to surrender to the pace as well. Furthermore, Maya’s interest in the Baroque and the impulse to freeze intense emotion through painting lends to the belief that her work is a language unto itself, one which captures myriad images and emotions—mountains, dragons, volcanoes, ephemerality, the abyss, fear, courage.

Text by Sofia Corrales Akerman

Violeta Maya (b. 1993, Madrid, Spain) lives and works in Madrid, and received her BA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include El Santo Al Cielo, Gallery BR, Tetbury, UK (2023) and A mi nadie me preguntó si quería nacer, pero bueno, aquí estoy, Alzueta Gallery, Madrid, ES (2022). She has recently been included in group exhibitions at Alzueta Gallery, Madrid, ES (2023); GÄRNA Gallery, Madrid, ES (2022); and Aprestadora Gallery, Barcelona, ES (2020).