Maya beason: Crème Fraîche Salon

Maya’s paintings begin with soaking raw canvas in water - preferably from a natural source, such as the sea or a river, or more for her recent body of work, the ancient holy wells that pepper the Cornish landscape. This has a dual purpose - a functional part of the process, yes, but also crucial in giving each work a firm sense of time and place.

Once saturated, the canvas is allowed to dry out to a certain point, after which the ink is applied, in dashes and strokes and splatters. On contact with the wet fabric, the ink disperses and diffuses and changes colour and intensity. The extent of these transformations is mediated by the amount of moisture in the canvas - by adding more water to specific areas Maya is able to exert some (but never total) control over the behaviour of the ink, coaxing it into a composition.

The process, therefore, becomes a kind of meditative wrestle between ink and water, played out on unstretched canvas. The compositions that emerge, drawn from natural rhythms, landscapes, and the body, are more reflective of a state of mind or feeling that a particular subject. Some of the works are quite clearly figurative, but Maya’s recent oeuvre (in water drawn from and named for holy wells) is dominated by really organic forms that almost move across the canvas, perhaps recalling some state of semi-consciousness.

Maya graduated in 2025 from the BA Fine Art (Painting) programme at Camberwell College of Arts. She has since worked from her studio - and the surrounding countryside - in Cornwall.