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Urban Etchings: Artist layers multiple images to give the impression of pencil drawings

In his series Urban Etchings, contemporary artist Grant Legassick loves to study the urban environment by taking multiple images and layering them over one another to give the impression of a fine, delicate pencil drawing or metal etching.

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Layered pencil-sketch effect showing a crowded train station concourse with an ornate yellow clock tower and architectural ironwork overhead

Each etching deconstructs a city environment, replacing form and structure with the ebb and flow of movement, reducing its rigid formalism into a metaphysical yet poetic mutability, leaving you with a deep perspective and a sometimes unnerving view.

These ethereal aggregations depict Grant's commentary on the human condition in our modern world, raising questions about our relationship with time, the collective experience, forgetfulness and memory.

Urban Etchings will be exhibiting at Riflemaker, 79 Beak Street, London on the 16 and 17 November. To discover more of Grant's work visit www.grantlegassick.com.

Via Creative Boom submission | All images courtesy of Grant Legassick

Layered photograph of a crowded city street with multiple transparent images overlaid to create an ethereal, etched effect showing pedestrians, buildings and sky
A layered black and white urban street scene with blurred figures walking through a city canyon of towering buildings and bright light, creating a pencil-sketch effect
Multiple overlaid photographic layers of a busy city street with stone buildings and pedestrians create a soft, etched drawing effect
Layered black and white image of a London street with Big Ben in the distance, clock on a building and crowds of blurred figures creating an ethereal, etched effect
Layered pencil drawing effect showing crowds of figures in motion beneath ornate arched ceiling of a grand Victorian hall
Multiple layered images of pedestrians walking down a narrow urban street create an ethereal, etched effect in black and white
Black and white layered photograph of a crowded city street with Big Ben visible in the distance, creating an ethereal etched effect through multiple exposures
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