Art Musings curated Gardens of Song, a solo exhibition by Maya Burman, brings together works from the past seven years of Maya’s practice, offering an immersive view into her richly patterned, lyrical world.
Maya’s detailed paintings have a tapestry-like effect where everything is subordinate to floral, decorative patterning, reminiscent of the French art nouveau tradition. Her watercolours are populated by figures, depicted in moments of play, expressive of an abundant joie de vivre, the spirit of play and creativity. Maya’s art draws on diverse genealogies, among them Degas’ ballerinas and the dancers of eastern India. This is consonant with Maya’s transcultural background: her mother is the French artist Maïté Delteil; her father is the Indian artist Sakti Burman.
The artist’s immersion in the European and Indic civilisations manifests itself through the details of her work. Maya portrays the protagonists of her paintings in postures of heightened play: leisure as a form of gracefully slowed down athleticism, expressing itself through a finesse of gesture in a pictorial space that appears to have been shaped as textile, as tapestry. The small town of Anthe where the artist resides is reflected in her works. Inspired by the abundance of nature; the birds, the fruits and flowers seem to cross over from the overhanging branches of trees to the patterns on the clothes of her protagonists at play, in an idyllic setting.
Maya Burman’s versatile artistic practice embraces diverse media and projects, including painting and drawing, as well as mural commissions posters, and illustrations for books such as Fatik et le Jongleur de Calcutta, the French translation of Satyajit Ray’s novel, Phatik Chand. Born in Villeneuve sur Lot, France in 1971, Burman was trained as an architect at the École Nationale d’Architecture Paris – Villemin and the École Nationale d’Architecture Paris – Villemin during the 1990s. She spent a gap year at Centre for Built Environment, Kolkata, working on a survey of the historic North Kolkata residential quarter, associated with the Bengal Renaissance.
The artist’s immersion in the European and Indic civilisations manifests itself, as does her lifelong exposure to the history of art, through the details of her works. Maya is not afraid of articulating the claims of the folk and the classical within the space of the contemporary. The details of Indian miniature painting and European Middle Age architecture merge in her art, and literature and poetry are also very much present.
Entry free
What: Gardens of Song
When: January 8 to February 21, 2026
Where: Art Musings, 1 Admiralty Building, Colaba Cross Lane, Cuffe Parade, Mumbai - 400005
For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.