Maddie Yuille, 'To the neighbours at night I' 2020

To the neighbours at night is a series of works on paper made by the artist during lockdown. Based on her own photographs taken on her phone, uncanny pinks and greens illuminate the exterior of a building, windows hinting at a concealed world within. Retaining the exaggerated perspective of the photos on which they’re based, they suggest a voyeuristic looking in which the viewer becomes implicated.
 
Varying in degrees of abstraction, each image is built up with layers of translucent paint, allowing the white of the paper beneath to act as a light source. Wrapped in the darkness of night, they nevertheless have a strange quality of light to them – a darkness illuminated by light from within. Made at a time of social isolation, these paintings suggest a longing to connect, and demonstrate a close looking, in which the strange nature of the everyday reveals itself.