Mara Korkola

Artist: Mara Korkola

Title:  “No place 332”

"My work focuses on “no place” places, in-between, public places that we all move through on our way from one place to another. They are familiar places, made the focus. 

My depictions of nature are not idyllic or glorified, but of the kind that is present in our regular lives, in public parks, edges of parking lots, abandoned lots, accessible to everyone, and no matter how isolated they may appear, are always a short distance from a sidewalk, road or highway. 

The resulting paintings are about discovering the unexpected in ordinary, overlooked spots that can “catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”

No place 332 is also about the experience of walking. Walking is the pace of our thoughts: Darwin and Kant routinely walked to think, Nietzsche said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”2 Rebecca Solnitt asserted that walking “is how the body measures itself against the earth.”3 Walking allows for a more immersed experience of place."

- Mara Korkola

Artist: Mara Korkola

Title:  “No place 276”

"My work focuses on “no place” places, in-between, public places that we all move through on our way from one place to another. They are familiar places, made the focus.

The No place 276 series is also about the experience of walking. Walking is the pace of our thoughts: Darwin and Kant routinely walked to think, Nietzsche said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”2 Rebecca Solnitt asserted that walking “is how the body measures itself against the earth.”3 Walking allows for a more immersed experience of place.

This work is also about the effects of nature. Recent studies have shown that urbanization is associated with increased levels of mental illness and that walking in nature has a meaningful impact on a person by “sooth[ing] the mind and, in the process, chang[ing] the workings of our brains in ways that improve our mental health.”4 And “a growing body of research shows that people who spend time outside in sunny, green and natural spaces tend to be happier and healthier than those who don’t.”4 A newer study goes a step further by focusing on photographs of the outdoors: ‘‘short durations of viewing green pictures may help people to recover from stress."

- Mara Korkola