Graphic art: Instagrammer takes scissors to fashion ads

New York – Doug Abraham, aka Instagram user @bessnyc4, has taken the social media app by storm with his dark, sometimes grotesque collage work.

Shots of some of the world's best-known models are spliced with cuttings of S&M photos, horror film clips and pop culture imagery to create compelling photomontages. Combining fashion advertisements with visceral scenes, Abraham's Insta-art challenges today's Photoshopped perfectionism and ideals of beauty.

'I felt like I'd seen all of the pictures that were cool,' Abraham tells Dazed Digital. 'Combining images with other images for me was a way to feel engaged. I think it was like trying to find a way to startle myself or to have some experience of a compelling moment of looking.'

Abraham's disturbing images have a following of more than 34,300 on Instagram – and his work is featured in a fashion editorial in the July issue of Dazed & Confused. The popularity of his work makes sense in this global internet age, when an image is regurgitated over and over again, and audiences are quickly becoming tired of the sameness of it all. 

For more on this cultural fatigue, read our macrotrend on The Polarity Paradox to see why consumers are being drawn to dystopia and darkness during this era of information overload.