M . L A R G E N T
C R E A T I V E

ARTIST STATEMENT for Reconsidering Residuum

Reconsidering Residuum is an exhibit of process-driven photographic constructions.

The work rescues the discards of the print manufacturing process from the refuse bin and presents its imagery as art object. In its own abstracted way, this work makes reference to the unvalued children my parents would rescue who had been abandoned, rejected, or discarded. I could just as easily titled the pieces "Ben", "Dale", "Barbara", or "Pat".

The foundation of my artmaking is based in Jasper Johns’ famous directive, “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” Mindful of the look and feel of Man Ray's solarizations and László Moholy-Nagy's hand-made photograms, my process is deliberate intervention in the spirit of Barbara Kasten's monochromatic work.

The tools that were used to reveal the fantastic and to present the banal in an unfamiliar way are my camera, decades of experience with digital imaging software, and an informed intuitive spontaneity. This series investigates "image as object" whereby multiple viewpoints of the discarded material of the sign manufacturing process is layered into a single impossible image and presented as if it were an object.

If my art has a mission, it is to challenge the viewer to consider the subjects of these fanciful reclamations and to reconsider the power of redemption in a world of unvalued castoffs, discards, and rejections.