“UNCANNY VALLEY OF EVERYDAY LIFE”: Works by Princeton artist Margaret Koval will be featured at ArtWRKD Gallery in Newtown, Pa., February 7 though February 23.

ArtWRKD Gallery in Newtown, Pa.,  presents “The Uncanny Valley of Everyday Life,” artist Margaret Koval’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery, February 7 through February 23. This series of new paintings offers an exploration of the disquieting and surreal landscape of contemporary America, presenting an arresting gaze into the deep strangeness of where we live now.

The disquiet starts with the paintings themselves, which both depict and embody the show’s title. Executed with oils on high-grade burlap, their physical presence tricks the eye into seeing textiles — tapestries, needlepoints, or thread-worn rugs. Paint is slathered onto the back of the canvas and forced through the open-weave material. What extrudes out the front appears as loops of yarn, colored threads, or sometimes like the rematerialized pixels of the digital photographs which are the source material for much of Koval’s imagery.

This slippage between media is intentionally uncanny — and in service of her overall vision: there is no terra firma here. Pedestrians can liquify into oozing paint, yet remain recognizably human. Streetlights don’t illuminate so much as they drip onto cars and bushes. Neighborhood homes loom with menacing appeal while roads and parks appear as liminal spaces, aglow in unnatural, night-for-day lighting. And through it all, a sense of voyeurism reigns — underscored by the high-angle perspective of surveillance cameras or the obscured viewpoint of hidden watchers.

While faintly unsettling, the overall effect simultaneously stirs visual delight. Koval often leans on the cinematographic toolkit she developed as a documentary filmmaker for the framing and lighting of her pieces. But her painterliness is no less on view. Her strands of rich, tertiary colors sometimes hover over surfaces stained in complementary or analogous hues to create optically complex and deeply beguiling paintings. At times, they can vibrate like a flickering video screen. At other times, they feel as comforting as a home-sewn sampler on grandma’s wall — or as old-world as a Persian carpet.

Koval splits her time between Princeton and London, England. She earned her master’s degree from the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2010, following studies at the Byam Shaw School of Art (now Central Saint Martins) and the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

In addition to her artistic practice, Koval has an accomplished career as a multimedia producer, documentary filmmaker, and Emmy-winning broadcast journalist. Her independent films, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, have aired nationally on PBS.

ArtWRKD Gallery is at 128 South State Street in Newtown, Pa. For more information, visit artwrkd.com.