Mara Korkola, Tofino, British Columbia
STUDIO UPDATE
Mara Korkola and the intimacy of scale.
SUMMER 2025
ELISSA CRISTALL /projects
MARA KORKOLA @marakorkola
©2020-2026 ARTOFFICE.CA
Korkola transforms the familiar into something almost otherworldly—offering viewers a luminous, immersive experience at intimate scale.
Mara Korkola’s paintings pulse with the shifting rhythms of light, capturing both its delicate subtleties and dramatic contrasts. Her work spans the full spectrum of illumination, from the inky depths of night to the soft glow of dawn and the brilliance of day. In her nocturnal scenes pure, radiant colours emerge from velvety darkness, creating shimmering compositions that feel both intimate and vast. At dawn and dusk, she lingers in the liminal moments where light and shadow blur, distilling the fleeting transitions that define our perception of time and place.
No place #565, oil on panel, 9″ x 12″
Your parents grew up in the Finnish communities in Ontario. Do you feel a connection to your Finnish roots?
Absolutely, I was raised in Northern Ontario by first generation Canadians, with Finnish customs and foods, hearing the language, having saunas, going skiing, and surrounded by great design (glass and tableware, tapestries, jewelry). And lots of wood. I spent countless hours in nature with my family, which continues to be a significant influence in my art practice.
How has your painting developed? What drove your development as an artist?
I developed by just keeping at it, putting in the time. The work progresses on its own, fluidly, quietly, slowly. I have hit walls. No amount of thinking can get you through them, because ultimately, the work informs the work, so painting (or taking a break and waiting for clarity) is the only way forward.
No place #530, oil on panel, 8″ x 6″
What materials do you like to use and why?
Oil paint because it’s a perfect medium. It’s organic and pure, natural, buttery and substantial, and smells so good. It’s a physical joy.
Why do you choose to work small?
What I’ve always loved about small work is the possibility of an unexpected and disproportionate power they can hold. This can happen for many different reasons, sometimes because of the amount of attention and detail painted, or a vast expanse they can contain. The tension between size and scale can create something much bigger than the modest size of the painting itself.
There is an intimacy to smaller works. They don’t reveal everything at once. They invite the viewer to come closer, making the experience more personal and engaging.
You title and number your paintings “No place”. What is the significance of this title?
The places I paint are specific places, yet ordinary enough to be many places. They are anywhere and everywhere.
My work is about discovering the unexpected in ordinary places that can, as Seamus Heaney wrote in his poem “Postscript”, “catch the heart off guard and blow it open.” It’s about the sublime, the beauty around us, not about a specific vantage point or famous view. So not about naming the place.
And No-place is the ancient Greek word “utopia.” That felt right.
No place #535, oil on canvas, 22″ x 17″
What single thought impacts the decisions you make as an artist?
Be true to your vision.
My work reflects who I am, how I am in the world, what I do and think about. When I found myself spending more time on hiking trails, paths through parks, densely treed city streets to walk and cycle through, my work shifted to include these places. I was thinking a lot about how we have changed the way we live more quickly than we can evolve… and I thought about how we can make conscious effort to change some of those things that have a negative impact.
What are your strengths as a painter?
A strong, sure hand… an attention to detail, which can be a weakness, but when kept in the right proportion, it works. And a strong design sense, which helps me push the representation of specific subjects towards abstraction.
No place #540, oil on aluminum on panel, 10″ x 8″
When I paint, it is a very concentrated act, which involves a directness combined with ease; the painting is done in one sitting, no matter how long it takes.
Is painting primarily emotional or intellectual for you?
Neither. It’s just work. But work that can transcend to another state, a state of flow, just like when an athlete is in the zone, or a writer hits a point in a novel and has to type fast to keep up with what’s happening. When I paint, it is a very concentrated act, which involves a directness combined with ease; the painting is done in one sitting, no matter how long it takes.
No place #543, oil on panel, 10″ x 8″
No place #587, oil on panel, 10″ x 8″
When you look at a painting, what do you feel?
I approach a painting as openly as possible. I let it do its thing, and try to figure out what it is that’s happening. We talk about art in order to better understand what’s happening, yet the minute you start to talk about it you begin to misrepresent it. Painting is a visual language, not one of words.
What or who is your biggest influence in making art?
My biggest influence is just the way I was raised – I was taught to draw, to appreciate art, design and nature. I have always done it so it is integral to my life –painting may not make me happy, but not painting makes me unhappy.
No place #590, oil on panel, 8″ x 10″
What do you hope people will experience when they look at one of your paintings?
I hope that they will pause similar to reading a poem, or it triggers introspection and offers a connection to something bigger than themselves. A moment of beauty in ordinary life.
Mara Korkola graduated from the Ontario College of Art, Toronto (AOCA); Wichita State University, Kansas (BFA) and the University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio (MFA).
She has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Canada, the US and abroad, including Painting as Paradox at Artists Space in New York, Synthetic Psychosis at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Auto-Motive: World from the Windshield, Oakville Galleries, Ontario, Sequence and Passage at Cambridge Galleries in Cambridge, Ontario, and Commuter, a comprehensive solo exhibition of her No place series of paintings at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ontario. She has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her work is held in private and corporate collections including Scotia Bank, Fidelity Investments and Hydro Quebec.