This collection explores the textures, markings, and interplay of graphic elements that appear on city street surfaces.
The elements that form these compositions are manhole covers, cracks, Department of Highway paint, oil spills, tire marks, foot prints, tar, snow, and salt deposits. Randomly combined, they form a unique art.
I like to believe that visual patterns, like good poems, contain secrets—a form of hieroglyphics, that if decoded, would provide insight into life’s mystery and shed light into our lives. Are there secrets embedded in these random patterns? Does what appear on the surface as haphazard textures, shapes and lines, actually mirror, and a roadmap to, our collective unconscious? I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide.
Until we are successful at decoding them, these graphics are offered for their unique aesthetic—one that rivals the best abstract art adorning the walls of the worlds’ museums.
Abraham Menashe
New York City, 1976