Maura Berman Vazakas

Maura Berman is a contemporary American artist based in San Francisco. She is known for her thought-provoking paintings and collages.

Maura Berman developed her passion for art from an early age. Her mother was an artist, so she grew up surrounded by an artsy atmosphere of painting and drawing. “Growing up in New York City, my mother always took me to all the great museums in New York. Of course, you go into museums and see Picasso at the Modern and go just like, “Wow!”. I was constantly being visually stimulated by all art and objects every day, even now,” she recalls.

While art was a significant part of her upbringing, Maura’s primary passion was piano. At Oberlin College, she pursued a major in piano performance alongside art and art history. This dual focus on music and visual arts is a recurring theme in her work, where the movement and rhythm of music often influence her paintings.

Maura Berman does her outstanding drawings and abstract mixed media painting in watercolor, acrylic, and collages. “Because I did not have a studio, a pencil and a pan were always around. I loved drawing. That was my first love, and I still love drawing. My drawings are very detailed. Since the pandemic, I have been focusing on portraits of my children. I have been commissioned to do dog portraits. It is done on paper but is very detailed, and I feel like I know the person or the animal.” At the same time, her paintings are never still. They are chaotic and abstract. They are full of energy that viewers can feel through the canvas. “My paintings are not still. There is movement all around it. There is always music in my head. I wake up in the morning with music in my head because I love music. So, the movement in my paintings is the music in my head coming through to the canvas,” Maura describes.

Maura has spent much of her life in San Diego, connecting significantly with local artists and actively developing her career. “Before moving to San Diego, I had never had an Art Studio. I started hanging out with artist friends. I looked at their art and appreciated it, but I thought I could do art as well. I could do just as well, maybe better. So I thought, ‘OK, I am going to start.’ I had a garage in my house and converted it into an art studio. I started showing my art in San Diego,” she says. Her first exhibition at the San Diego Art Institute was a success, leading to opportunities in Los Angeles. The gallery owner was stunned by her paintings, which guaranteed multiple exhibitions in LA. Despite that, Maura continued here, making exhibits in San Diego, too. With a recommendation from a gallery owner, she applied to the New American Paintings, an exhibition in print. As a result, Maura printed several pages of her artwork. This opportunity allowed her to exhibit her works all over the US.

One of Maura’s notable works, “The Cups of Turin” (watercolor on canvas), was part of the “Cup Camp” exhibition at Debra Owen Gallery in 1999, her first solo show. “Cup that is a universal. Everyone is familiar with a cup. We put coffee or any other liquid in it. I think cups would be around forever,” she reflects. Her subsequent exhibition at the gallery featured cups with rebuses, later displayed at the Ocean Side Museum of Art. “I was observing how people were looking at paintings. Some of them just looked and walked everywhere, so I want them to figure out something, so I did the rebus,” she explains. Maura also enjoyed a collaborative painting experience with another San Diego artist. They call their duet COMA.

Currently based in San Francisco, Maura is working on a new series of mixed-media paintings. “They are not simple because they are mixed media. I use acrylic and collage in them. I like collages in paintings because sometimes I hide the collage, and you can’t tell where the collage ends and the painting starts,” she says, continuing to innovate and explore new artistic frontiers.

Daria Maksymenko
Art Gallery Assistant