Christina Tenaglia
06/10/2021
22:48
The work of Marlo Pascual had earned the attention of a set of artists particularly for her photo-based work. She often combined pictures sourced from eBay and vintage shops with different objects like plants and light bulbs. While her work is still not widely known outside New York, it achieved cult status in 2009.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Marlo Pascual studied photography as an art student, and she got an M.F.A. from Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art.
‘I applied for photography. When I got there, I didn’t want to take photographs anymore,’ she told W magazine in 2012. ‘But I had to take a painting class, and the first thing I did was pour paint over a photo.’
Furthermore, through her images and installations, Marlo Pascual gave new life to forgotten objects. She manipulated photos in a such way that the context in which they were taken disappeared. In fact, she typically used small photographs, for example, a tiny graduation photo destined for a wallet or an 8☓10 glossy publicity still. Then she enlarged, tor in half, or folded them in such a way that the vital information vanished. Thus not only did she mount those photos on stiff supports and leaned against walls, but also stabbed them through with bright fluorescent tubes, or even lit by candles.
‘I want it to be physically imposing, like theatrical props,’ Marlo Pascual once said. This reminds us that the photographs she used already became constructions — positioned, framed, and lit.
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