When Maya Burman was asked about her feeling about painting, she told, `Painting is my life. During my childhood, it was like an everyday routine because I used to see my parents painting all the time. I just see my life through painting. Even when I am not working, I continue to mature my painting. When I see Art, or read a book, it has also an influence on my work. When I paint, it is my life, my emotions and my pains, which are coming on the paper`. Maya Burman is the name of a modern-day artist of Indian lineage residing in France. She was born to a family of contemporary Indian artists. The illustrious Sakti Burman is her father while Jayasri Burman is her cousin and Paresh Maity is her cousin`s husband.
The most astonishing thing about her painting is that each of her pictures are done in details. Thus it can be said that, `Maya Burman`s paintings have a arras like effect where everything is subordinate to patterning, reminiscent of the French art nouveau tradition`. The figures possess an `archetypal aura` and this aura is depicted in a clean decisive manner. Such style of work was present during the classical period of Picasso. The period was marked as `an idyllic land inhabited by healthy and young boys of Athenian ideal` after the war.
Maya Burman works with watercolor, pen and ink. Her creations have a strong fantasy element in it. Her technique of work can be regarded as a decelerate step-by-step process of accretion of marks. While painting a creation, she first sketches it in pencil. Next, she applies a layer of watercolour and finishes the outlines and details in black ink with a pen. In her own words, `Watercolour is an important part of my work - I use it to give a kind of mood at a special point of time. Drawing takes a long time and is transcription of emotions. Yes, I have also started working with acrylic on canvases`.
Maya Burman`s interpretations have the certain quality of being reproducible. It is considered a legacy, which perhaps expresses resemblance of her training as an architect. Her grooming as an architect contrasts in a nice way with the expressions of the themes that she deals with. The paintings of Maya Burman can easily be conceived as a meeting ground of two cultures - Indian and French. She attempts to blend the genres of Indian miniature painting and European Middle Age architecture in her art. Not only that, literature and poetry is also very significantly present in her paintings, as she considers them the provider of new images. Some of the poets include Spanish Frederico Garcia Lorex or the Japanese `Iku`. Her typographies are predominately figurative and they are changeable according to her mood.
As an artist, Maya`s first concern is to continue painting. Currently she is working on the Metamorphosis of Ovide, the Roman poet. Ms. Burman lives in Paris but through her paintings she retreats to a land of lyricism and allegory. Maya has had several exhibitions of her work in India, France, and the UK, winning several prizes in the way.
