Marlo Pascual: Making Something Out of Something

In one work, a woman's portrait lies upside down with her head turned at a right angle to her torso, and a table lamp sits directly on her face. Marlo Pascual found pictures like this in thrift stores, yearbooks and old advertisements, enlarged them to the size of furniture, then cut, cracked or built on top of them.

You walk into the fourth-floor galleries and the same young blond woman looks out from eight identical prints, each overlaid with something else: a spiderweb, a prickly plant, a celery stalk, a hand. The show has 17 works from 2009 to 2014, all from NMWA's collection. Washington City Paper's Louis Jacobson called it "a crisp exhibit", found those pairings "somewhat random", and rated the torn and shattered portraits as her most compelling work.

Admission is $16, or $13 for DC residents, over-65s and students. It is free for visitors 21 and under, and for everyone on the first Sunday and second Wednesday of each month. Until 28 February 2027.