Mara Korkola’s ongoing No Place nightscape paintings are joined by a new series of daytime winterscapes. These paintings continue the formal concerns yet in a reverse palette: the indeterminate light of winter, where sky and earth are toned in nuanced shades of grey. Delicate wisps of colour define the residue and paraphenalia of vehicles that transport us — headlights, street signs, tire tracks, steam. Both series are reductive studies of familiar yet anonymous places. Korkola turns up the volume on the mundane, creating hieroglyphic patches of snow and light and odd shapes splayed across pavement. The small-scale depiction of vast receding roadways creates both distance and intimacy: everything is the same size, from pylons to warehouse buildings. Korkola’s use of white and black are a means of evoking color and life through absence. Objects disappear into light or emerge from darkness, exploring the limit of what is visible.
