Late evening is Mara Korkola’s signature time of day. This is when she prefers to paint as it allows for uninterrupted sessions and working wet on wet, a technique that gives her paintings their lush and fluid surfaces. It is also her favourite time to photograph cities, when streets are devoid of human traffic and the lights emanating from buildings, headlights and street lamps appear jewel-like against the black sky. Korkola returns to night based paintings, this time documenting on foot with a focus on the intersection of nature and cities. Each city she has painted including New York, Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, San Francisco, Vancouver and Belgrade, has a specific feeling while still remaining relatively anonymous. The interplay between trees and artificial light is perhaps what excites Korkola most, prompting concentric, impasto brushstrokes in electric colour.
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 Germany, including Painting as Paradox at Artists Space in New York, Synthetic Psychosis at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Sequence and Passage: Mara Korkola and Monica Tap 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.
CV
1997 MFA University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas
1994 BFA Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas
1988 AOCA, Associates Degree, Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Ontario
Selected Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
2022 On the Edge: The East Coast Trail, Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2019 In a Silent Way, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2018 Howard Park Institute, 2088 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON
2017 No place, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
En plein air, Museum of Language and Letters, The Centre for Culture “Vuk Karadzic,” Trsic, Serbia
2016 Night: Hans Op De Beeck & Mara Korkola, Ellephant, Montreal, QC
2013 (No place) pop-up exhibition, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2012 Here, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB
2011 Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2010 Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
Sequence and Passage: Mara Korkola and Monica Tap, Cambridge Galleries Queen’s Square, Cambridge, ON
2009 Days to Night, Gallery Page and Strange, Halifax, Nova Scotia
2008 After Dark, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2007 Dusk to Night, Douglas Udell Gallery, Calgary, Alberta
2006 Dusk to Night, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta
2005 Mara Korkola, Bilder, Renate Schroeder Gallery, Moenchengladbach, Germany
2004 Nocturnes: New paintings, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
Commuter, MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario
2003 Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
2002 No place 40-49, Lonsdale Gallery Project Room, Toronto
2001 No place, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto
2000 Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1997 Rocks and Houses, Satellite Space, Blue Star Art Complex, San Antonio, Texas
Midwest Landscapes, Picadilly Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
1996 …You think of houses, Gallery E, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Collected Landscapes Dec. 95-Feb. 96, Gallery E, The University of Texas at San Antonio
1994 Recent Landscapes, The McFarland Gallery, Wichita State University
1992 Scrimshaw Gallery, Oakville, Ontario
1991 Two Solo Exhibitions, The Carnegie Gallery, Dundas, Ontario
1990 Landscapes, Atikokan Centennial Museum, Ontario
Selected Group Exhibitions
2018 small Pictures Show, Elissa Cristall Gallery, Vancouver BC
2018 Seattle Art Fair, Elissa Cristall Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2017 Pictures at an Exhibition, Elissa Cristall Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2016 My Landscape, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2015 The Art Collectors Starter Kit Show, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB
The Spring Show, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB
2014 Edge of Wilderness: Hardy Hartman Korkola McIntosh Meanwell Smith, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto ON
2013 Auto-Motive: World from the Windshield, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON
Scale, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2012 Recent Works, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
60 Painters, Humber College School of Arts and Media, Etobicoke, ON
2011 Natural Response, Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2009 The Winter Show, Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2008 Small Works, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2007 Representation, Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA and New York, NY
2006 High Roads and Low Roads, Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida and The Arts Center at Okaloosa-Walton College, McIlroy Gallery, Niceville, FL
New Work, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2005 Glanz & Gloria, Renate Schroeder Gallery, Moenchengladbach, Germany
Season Preview: New Work by Gallery Artists, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2004 Ten Years of Painting: MFA Alumni, Satellite Space, San Antonio, Texas
2003 Small Immensities, The Painting Center, New York, NY
Alchemy and Mysticism #2: a salon style painting show in the urban disco trailer, Toronto and Williamsburg, New York (presented by The Americas Society as a Satellite Program at Momenta Art)
The New Topography, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
Push play, Mercer Union, Toronto, ON
Visions and Other Senses, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, ON
2002 Painting as Paradox, Artists Space, New York, NY Introductions, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Let’s Get Lost, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON
Synthetic Psychosis: manufacturing dissent in current Toronto painting, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, ON
March Exhibition, Other gallery, Winnipeg, MB
Superb Execution and Great Hangings, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB
2001 Snipe, Steinberg + Associates, Toronto, ON
2000 Re-negotiating Space, Community Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON
You Think of Houses, The Space Gallery, St. John, NB
1999 Open Juried Exhibition, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge ON, Jury Prize
alfresco, Angell Gallery, Toronto, ON
1997 Breakout, Satellite Space, Blue Star Art Complex, San Antonio, TX
-ish, Lost Dog Studios, San Antonio, TX
1996 Summer Survey, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario
With Respect to Painting, Gallery 1203, San Antonio, TX
Poison, Satellite Space, Blue Star Art Complex, San Antonio, TX
Great Plains National, Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art, Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS In Celebration of Women’s History Month, The Primary Object Gallery, San Antonio, TX Black and White, The Artist’s Gallery, San Antonio, TX
1995 Profiles, Satellite Space, Blue Star Art Complex, San Antonio TX
Texas Paint, The Artist’s Gallery, San Antonio TX
Grabados, Galeria Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano Miraflores, Lima, Peru
1994 interiors/exteriors, Pratt Community College Art Gallery, KS
Selected Public Collections
Belcourt Inc.
Bell Mobility
Bimcor Inc.
CHUBB,
FIT Institute
Hydro Quebec
OE, Western Petroleum Company
Ministry of Natural Resources
Fidelity Investments
Scotiabank
TD Bank Group
McCarthy Tetrault LLP
