street abstracts: torn and folded

Over the years I have photographed many torn posters and adverts, peeling walls and glue glyphs. I like the layers, textures and fragmented altered imagery. Recently I was waiting at a bus stop in Kentish Town standing by a billboard and took a few versions of the photograph below. The wind was blowing and folded over the top layer of the ad into a triangle with a strong diagonal to reveal another triangle showing a ripped, partial face with a shiny red upper lip, heavy lashed blue eye and slanted brow. The abstraction is reinforced by the big energetic white rips, the bold red and black bands, and the geometry of the square section under the bisected upper lip:

I then remembered a photo I’d taken last year walking through a Paris Metro station which featured a peeling advert with a strong fold which in turn created a new multi-layered abstract image with a collage effect:

And finally, another photograph taken locally – a detail of a torn billboard with a little curling fold, which to me looks like an abstract painting:

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