Marko Vuokola may be working at Korppoo, or in Texas, or in the Audi salesrooms in Helsinki's Herttoniemi. The interesting issues are present everywhere.

Since 1989, Marko Vuokola has participated in dozens of exhibitions in Finland, the Nordic countries and elsewhere in Europe, the United States and Australia. He held his first solo exhibition at Galerie Anhava 1992.

The Seventh Wave consists of pairs of images with precisely the same cropping and angle of view, thus unlike, for example, stereoscopic photographs in which changes to the angle of view creates the illusion of three-dimensionality. The camera is on its tripod. First, I take a picture, followed by another one sometime later. I have wanted to keep the interval between the photographs varied, "unscientific" and even indefinite. Two seconds or six hours can pass between the moments of taking the pictures. In some of the pairs, the difference can be seen easily, while in others it is less obvious. Even the blink of an eye is time enough for many atoms to revolve, grasshoppers to leap and glimmers of light to change place.

When photographing for The Seventh Wave, I placed the camera in front of the subject and let it note and record the view. I accepted the results as such. I used my father's old Hasselblad Superwide 6x6 camera from 1956 - the same brand that was the first camera on the Moon. I photographed a great deal, with highly different views and situations as subjects. In the final selections, I sought an open and even surprising combination.

In the film "Papillon" the prisoners trying to escape from Devil's Island wait on the beach for the seventh wave. It is the largest one, which should help them get away. With the title The Seventh Wave I refer to both expecting something better and greater and the great, eternal and even romantic cycles of life. I also wish to refer to the moment and place in which we are now; in fact we have nothing else. And the fact that this moment has already passed.

The Seventh Wave - Window was photographed in Big Bend National Park, Texas. The location is the "Window", a well-known site for viewing sunsets -a sight that HAS TO BE photographed. I am fascinated by the idea of thousands of photographs taken of this same place. It represents an archetype of the landscape and the view.

The Seventh Wave - New was photographed at an Audi dealership in Helsinki's Herttoniemi. I took pictures in several car salesrooms and these models seemed to be suitably neutral, conventional new cars. The space and the changes in its lighting were well suited to my purposes. When I choose as my subject something new that will soon seem old, I do not address time only as the interval between two exposures. This work matures like good wine. Looking at it, one can consider how it will look for instance 20 years from now.

The Seventh Wave - Sky was photographed in Marfa, Texas. I took a great number of photographs on my trip. Especially sunsets and sunrises. After spending a day in Marfa studying Donald Judd's work, I could not but aim my camera at the wide-open deep blue sky of Texas. I felt that was it! There is an interval of a few hours between the pictures.

The Seventh Wave - Marfa was literally photographed in Marfa. The bright light of the setting sun creates a flare effect in the lens of the camera. The attractions of Marfa include the "Marfa Lights", a mysterious phenomenon appearing in the sky.

The Seventh Wave - Jurmo was photographed on a grey winter afternoon on the island of Jurmo (Korppoo) in the Southwestern Archipelago National Park in Finland. It captures the movement of small waves and water. How large is the seventh wave?

Time is often at the centre of my work. The exhibition features two works in which time is present as movement: Flash and Blue Movie II. Blue Movie II is blue in colour and takes movement as its theme. In a way, it combines my works "Method" (e.g. Museum of Contemporary Art /Studio N 1994) and "Blue Movie" (e.g. Anhava 2003). The flat screens are blue, the colour is the standard that appears on the screen when there is no transmitted signal. On one screen, a line one pixel high moves from the bottom to the top and vice versa, and on the other screen a line one pixel wide moves from left to right and from right to left. I attach to this work ideas such as that of the centre of a circle, which also applies to lenses. I think the centre exists only as an idea. Lines in inexorable movement can be conceived as tangentially passing the absolute centre, but it is impossible to stop the lines at the centre. "Blue movie" refers to a film of light erotic tone. At first sight, this work does not seem to contain any kind of image, not to mention anything particularly entertaining or erotic. But all things are relative. Looking at these works, Pontus Kyander noted aptly and amusingly:
" What's the difference between an artwork and a screensaver? Not much."

Flash takes its title from the effect that is produced when a video camera is set to take consecutive still images at a chosen tempo. The movement of the subject can be divided and perceived as a continuum of still images. Approximately three minutes long, this loop repeats hundreds of consecutive stills. Flash is an installation employing two projections, both of which have identical visual material.. Flash was photographed at Nauvo in the Southwestern Archipelago National Park.

Been there, seen it, done that contains three sandblasted lenses on a clear glass shelf resting on a steel structure. For me, the lens is a symbol of human curiosity and the thirst for knowledge. It is also an unbelievable optic invention, present in everything that has to do with images and seeing. In a highly concrete manner for example in cameras, in which light is directed through the lens onto a recording surface. The properties of a double-convex glass disc (lens) include the focal point (centre) through which the rays of light pass. Sight is based on the lens; seeing is the perception and interpretation of light passing through the lens of the eye.

"Been there, seen it, done that" is a phrase cynically noting something as seen and found to be uninteresting. Here, I refer to the endless desire to rush from one experience to another, although the essential can also be grasped by halting - and specifically by doing so. This work might also tell of the overabundance of visual stimuli and its numbing effect.

Flare #1, Flare #2 and Flare #3 are three separate works. Flare #4 is a diptych. In these works I have recorded passages from films showing the lens flare effect. This effect comes a bout when the camera is aimed too directly towards a bright source of light, when the light begins to be reflected in the lenses and to break down into the colours of the spectrum, often in round configurations. In principle, this is an undesired effect, but it is also used as a special effect for instance in television commercials and computer games. I recently saw a car commercial in which someone was driving a car on the deck of ship in rain and stormy weather, and, how else, the lens flare appeared to create the mood, even though there was hardly any sunshine. Even the Photoshop program has the lens flare effect, which can be added to any image of one's choices. The film is a series of stills creating the impression of movement. Following my method I have chosen from the narrative thus created a single moment and created a new story. The selected images display the flare effect in red, green and blue (RGB). The paired images of Flare #4 are actually a short film of two frames. The main aspect is light, the relationship with time and the narrative.