Try Not to Smile (12 Photos)
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These artists know exactly how to turn the streets into instant mood-lifters.
Here are 12 incredible pieces that make the theme “Try Not to Smile” feel basically impossible.
More: Never Avoid What Makes You Smile (8 Photos)
🍩 Simpsons Bus Stop — By DUUDOOR in Campo Grande, Brazil 🇧🇷
Turning an abandoned bus stop into the Simpsons’ living room is such a perfect public-art decision it almost feels inevitable in hindsight. It is funny, nostalgic, and so cheerful that waiting for the bus suddenly looks like the best part of the day.
More: Simpsons!: This bus stop in Brazil, before and after an artist added their touch
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🎮 Sonic the Hedgehog — By Pappas Pärlor in Sweden 🇸🇪
Pappas Pärlor has a gift for making traffic signs feel like they grew up on video games. Sonic racing around a roundabout is exactly the kind of tiny visual joke that makes a street corner feel ten times more alive.
💡 Fun Fact: Pappas Pärlor doesn’t use a single drop of paint! Every pixel in his street art is actually a plastic perler bead meticulously ironed together and glued to the environment.
More: Funny Signs (8 Photos)
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⚡ Believe in Me — By Sr. X in London, UK 🇬🇧
Sr. X somehow makes this feel sweet, funny, and emotionally dramatic at the same time. Pikachu as a cherished little companion should not be this touching, and yet here we are.
More: Believe in Me
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🐱 Pelle Svanslös — By Charlie Granberg in Uppsala, Sweden 🇸🇪
A giant storybook cat climbing across a city wall is already a strong start. Charlie Granberg makes it even better by letting the architecture become part of the scene, so the whole corner feels like it belongs to the cats now.
💡 Fun Fact: Pelle Svanslös (Peter No-Tail) isn’t just a random cat, he’s the beloved main character of a classic Swedish children’s book series by Gösta Knutsson, and the original stories are set right here in the city of Uppsala!
More: Pelle Svanslös mural by Charlie Granberg in Uppsala, Sweden
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🛸 Cow Abduction in Progress — By Oakoak in Dresden, Germany 🇩🇪
With almost nothing, Oakoak turns a street post into a UFO mid-kidnap. It is one of those ideas that makes complete nonsense feel completely logical.
More: Lovely by Oakoak (10 Photos)
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🎤 Janis Joplin — By Paola Sire in San Antonio, Texas 🇺🇸
Paola Sire leans fully into Janis Joplin’s warmth and wild charm, and the result is impossible not to love. The smile, the glasses, the color, the attitude, it all feels loud in exactly the right way.
More: Janis Joplin Mural Radiates Joy and Color in San Antonio (Texas)
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😆 Hyena Wall — By SCAF at Festival Puteaux, France 🇫🇷
This is basically the mural version of a giant uncontrollable laugh. SCAF makes the hyena feel so alive and over-the-top that the whole thing lands somewhere between impressive illusion and joyful chaos.
More: 26 Amazing 3D Paintings by SCAF!
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🧱 The Tiny Window Seat — By David Zinn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 🇺🇸
A missing brick becomes premium real estate for one small dreamer and a vase of flowers. It is miniature, cozy, and almost unfairly charming.
💡 Fun Fact: David Zinn creates his characters using only chalk, charcoal, and found objects. This means his tiny masterpieces are completely temporary and will wash away with the next heavy rain.
More: Cute Art By David Zinn (16 Photos)
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🪥 Brush Your Teeth, Brick Wall — By Tom Bob in New York, USA 🇺🇸
This is pure Tom Bob: one boring pipe, one cartoon face, and suddenly the whole wall has dental hygiene. The transformation is so clean you cannot unsee it.
💡 Fun Fact: Tom Bob has a strict personal rule: he almost never paints on a flat, blank wall. His entire artistic process revolves around finding existing 3D street furniture like pipes, meters, and vents to completely transform.
More: 7 Striking Street Art Pieces Capturing New York’s Spirit
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🌈 Rainbow Carrier — By Kenny Random in Padova, Italy 🇮🇹
Kenny Random takes a simple walking silhouette and turns it into something unexpectedly uplifting. It feels like someone casually carrying color across the city, which is honestly a pretty perfect street-art fantasy.
🔗 Follow Kenny Random on Instagram
🦖 Fake Shadows — By Damon Belanger in Redwood City, California, USA 🇺🇸
Damon Belanger hacks the sun itself. By painting monster silhouettes extending from totally normal street objects, he turns a simple mailbox into a giant, hungry beast waiting on the sidewalk.
💡 Fun Fact: Belanger started this project after being commissioned by the city to make downtown Redwood City more playful. He maps the shadows out with chalk at specific times of day to make the angles look perfectly believable!
More: Funny Fake Shadows! (20 Photos)
🔗 Follow Damon Belanger on Instagram
🎻 Playing With Statues
Sometimes the best street art isn’t painted on a wall, it’s just a moment of perfect timing. A little kid in a pink dress deciding to join a parade of bronze statues makes the heavy metal figures suddenly look completely alive.
More: Playing With Statues (25 photos)
Which one is your favorite?
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