The prevalent spray-painted markings on streets, sidewalks and even buildings largely go unnoticed. They blend into what Jimmy Stamp, an architecture and cultural journalist, aptly describes as an “urban patina of dirt and disrepair.” Stamp further describes cities covered “in hieroglyphics and cryptic designations scrawled on public surfaces; [seemingly] unintelligible tags and arcane signs intended to communicate messages to a specialized audience with a trained eye.” In this KRYLON® paint code, red is for electrical lines and orange is for communications. Blue is for potable water, while green is for sewerage and drainage.

Ethan Greenbaum photographs these glyphs, which form part of his visual vocabulary for wall works that physically exist somewhere in-between painting and sculpture. The images he uses are not to be taken or read literally as a safety language; nor does Greenbaum restrict himself exclusively to these messages. He also takes pictures of other graffiti-like surfaces—accidental or manmade—and urban signage. Greenbaum likes “things to be more representational than literal, or layered to combine the literal and representational.” In a way, his work refers to a kind of “contemporary parietal,” to abuse an archaeological term for art made on cave walls or stone blocks.

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