New paintings by Mark Viola explore layered identity, movement, and perception through translucent, process-driven works.
New Paintings by Mark Viola
Through explores translucence, movement, and the layered nature of perception. Figures emerge and recede within surfaces that reveal the process of their making, inviting viewers to look beyond the immediate image toward what lies beneath.
Across the exhibition, the subjects—ranging from cultural icons to creative genius—are approached not as fixed images, but as layered presences. Each carries a tension between public identity and private reality, where visibility and vulnerability coexist.
The works resist singular readings. Text fragments, underlying sketches, and visible revisions surface through the painted image, collapsing the division between foreground and background, subject and process. What is typically concealed—mistakes, adjustments, earlier marks—remains present, forming a visual language that mirrors the complexity of the individuals depicted.
In this way, the act of painting becomes inseparable from the subject itself. The accumulation of layers echoes the psychological and emotional weight carried by each figure, suggesting that identity is not static, but continuously constructed, obscured, and revealed over time.
Rather than offering resolution, the works remain open—holding space for ambiguity, motion, and multiple readings. Through ultimately asks not only what we see, but how we see, and what might be uncovered when we choose to look beyond the surface.
New paintings by Mark Viola explore layered identity, movement, and perception through translucent, process-driven works.
New Paintings by Mark Viola
Through explores translucence, movement, and the layered nature of perception. Figures emerge and recede within surfaces that reveal the process of their making, inviting viewers to look beyond the immediate image toward what lies beneath.
Across the exhibition, the subjects—ranging from cultural icons to creative genius—are approached not as fixed images, but as layered presences. Each carries a tension between public identity and private reality, where visibility and vulnerability coexist.
The works resist singular readings. Text fragments, underlying sketches, and visible revisions surface through the painted image, collapsing the division between foreground and background, subject and process. What is typically concealed—mistakes, adjustments, earlier marks—remains present, forming a visual language that mirrors the complexity of the individuals depicted.
In this way, the act of painting becomes inseparable from the subject itself. The accumulation of layers echoes the psychological and emotional weight carried by each figure, suggesting that identity is not static, but continuously constructed, obscured, and revealed over time.
Rather than offering resolution, the works remain open—holding space for ambiguity, motion, and multiple readings. Through ultimately asks not only what we see, but how we see, and what might be uncovered when we choose to look beyond the surface.
Good to know
Highlights
- 3 hours
- In person
Location
Twist Gallery
1100 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M6J 1H9
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