Painting/collage from the “Going Home” series, Marina Gonella.

Sometimes, it’s strangers in a foreign land that can see their surroundings in the most unfiltered manner, who can have a literal point of view that is not formed by a native history. The evocative paintings of Marina Gonella, raised in Argentina, have that essence.

An alum of the ArtCenter/South Florida (a Knight Arts grantee), her paintings make up the latest solo show at O Cinema (a Knight Arts Challenge winner) in Wynwood, part of a series run by the ArtCenter. The center sold its flagship space on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach last year, and has been finding ways to show art across the county, and in collaboration with other institutions. This particular coupling began a year and a half ago, and has grown to include a closing brunch that is combined with a movie of the artist’s choice.

Gonella’s exhibit title is perfect: “Going Home.” Her small, collaged paintings that hang in the cinema lobby are narrative depictions of her daily travels going home, from Miami Beach to the Broward suburb of Weston. As all South Floridians know, commutes can take up huge amounts of time, and can become mind-numbing, with one highway or freeway interchange melding into another, the views depressingly similar. But in Gonella’s hands, those all-too-familiar road signs, traffic lights, construction cones look distinctive, as if we are almost seeing them for the first time.

Collaged piece in the “Going Home” series of Marina Gonella.

The colors are also muted. Unlike the bright, brash tropical coloring of many paintings created in Miami, we are looking at blurred scenery that could be dulled by car exhaust. On the roads beneath the speed limit and directional signs in her works are abstract collaged snippets of other imagery, making these commonplace, car-window views unique.

Gonella used to depict the buildings of Buenos Aires, where she lived, and walked. The architecture of her world then was tied closely to the structures she moved by at a slow pace, close-up. After she transplanted to South Florida over a decade ago, her observational world changed dramatically. The architecture here is dominated by highways; more people spend time in their cars than they ever do walking. We observe our surroundings in a sped-up timeline, intentionally ignoring those unglamorous sights as we merge from one lane to another. Which is why Gonella’s eye does suggest that of a foreigner; she’s looking at things we’ve long stopped paying attention to.

One painting gets to stand alone on a wall, and it’s maybe the most expressive. In softened greens and grays, it’s a picture of a lonely highway, framed by power lines, with a sign for State Road 84. In its very plainness, it makes an indelible statement.

According to the artistic director of the ArtCenter, Susan Caraballo, Gonella has always explored how place impacts identity. “Our surroundings alter our actions, thoughts and way of life. Gonella’s pieces become a tangible and personal interpretation of her awareness of these surroundings.”

Ordinary moments are a transformed into something special, according to Caraballo. “Through the process of appropriation and representation, she captures the moment and makes it her own.”

In a sense, Caraballo is also experimenting with how space affects our perception of art, by highlighting it in non-traditional places such as O Cinema. For the time being, she says, the art works for this space will have to be relatively small and able to hang on a wall – unlike large sculpture, for instance. But she wants to see if they can facilitate some site-specific work as well. ArtCenter has also highlighted artists in Walgreen’s storefront windows throughout Miami Beach, a collaboration that Caraballo also wants to expand.

Speed limit sign highlighted in Gonella’s highway depiction.

At O Cinema, previous solo artist shows have included Babette Herschberger, who chose the dark comedy Blood Simple for her closing film; Carrie Sieh, who picked Six Degrees of Separation; and Lujan Candria, who had Lost in Translation starring Bill Murray wrap up the exhibit. Caraballo says that the films for the brunch don’t necessarily have to be ones that relate to the actual art, just ones that the artists themselves relate to. Gonella has chosen another Murray film for her August brunch, Broken Flowers. That’s a film directed by Jim Jarmusch, who with his quirky films celebrates very mundane lives, the equivalent maybe of those endless roadways given new life by Gonella’s vision.

Place is evoked not with visuals, but with sound at the Bakehouse Art Complex, a Knight Arts Challenge winner, which is continuing its Swenson Shots short exhibits throughout the summer. Cara Despain – a transplant from Salt Lake City – has created a lawn for her Shot. The Shots are one-week only solo shows, logistically a difficult process to pull off, but Despain triumphed. The room has no grass, no lawn accoutrements, just sounds reminiscent of sprinklers. It’s engulfing and enticing, but also brings up uncomfortable issues such as whether or not we should even maintain lawns anymore, in the face of water shortages, drought and the damage non-native planting can do. Writes Despain in her notes for the exhibit, “I’m interested in discussing the cultural undertones, origins and aesthetic signifiers the lawn carries and how this one simple but ubiquitous element of the American Dream relates to our disposition, our past and our future.”

In the dead heat of summer, these small, art-created spaces bring in fresh air.

“Going Home” runs through Aug. 2 at O Cinema Wynwood, 90 N.W. 29th St., Miami; www.artcentersf.org. The “Swenson Shots” series runs through August 2 at Bakehouse Art Complex, 561 N.W. 32nd St., Miami; www.bacfl.org.