BarIce Diptych | Brick side Faded message Still communicating |
J
ourney reference points. Most vintage hand-painted advertisement signs adorning building exteriors have been covered over, sandblasted away, or demolished. But occasionally the remnants of one of these once ubiquitous messages can be located. As constructed landscape captions that contributed a narrative to past lives, there is much to like about these residual time markers. Ghost ads resistant to the elements and economic succession, they become entities unto themselves, divorced from their original purpose.
An interesting variant are those advertisements which have been painted over with a second ad; as the paint gradually fades and becomes translucent, both layers are visible at once. What I find most intriguing is the randomized washed-out color combinations resulting from decades of weathering. This is especially appealing with signs painted on brick, as red differentially bleeds into the motif.
“I like how these things have lingered into a very different era, the reminder that a hundred years ago people were living in these streets. They're at once a very down-to-earth reminder of commercial ventures of the past, and a very fanciful intrusion of history into the modern day.” - Kate McDonnell
