Marlo Pascual

They are blown-up beyond their original formats (a tiny graduation photo destined for a wallet, for example, or an 8x10 glossy publicity still destined for a newspaper), torn in half or folded in such a way as to obscure vital information (not unlike the approach of Stezaker and with echoes of Baldessari), then mounted on stiff supports and leant against walls, sometimes stabbed cleanly through by bright, fluorescent tubes or lit by candles.

“So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies.” Sir Walter Raleigh

Pascual certainly ‘takes’ photographs – they are just not her own. She resurrects pictures, and fragments of pictures, from long forgotten archives – graduation photos or portraits tossed out by celebrity publicists.

Sometimes the newly ‘objectified’ image is propped up by a rock. “I want it to be physically imposing, like theatrical props,” Pascual says, reminding us that the photographs she uses are already constructions – positioned, framed, posed, lit. I am simultaneously reminded of a hybrid space, part furniture showroom, part mausoleum – along with the game of wits, Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which, as one official rule dictates, ‘Paper wins against rock, loses to scissors, and stalemates against itself.’

William A Ewing