Brings A Smile To My Face (9 Photos)

The animal is only half the surprise.

Look closely and the original object or material remains visible. It sits within or beside the finished work, giving you both the animal and the idea that shaped it.

Some fill a field. Others wait at pavement level. The scale changes, but the fun is spotting what each artist or maker started with.

More: Sculptures With Unique Creativity (24 Photos)

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🐻 “What If You Were to Sumo Wrestle a Bear?” — Wara Art Festival at Uwasekigata Park in Niigata, Japan 🇯🇵

This bear was one of five animal sculptures made for the Wara Art Festival’s 2019 “if” theme at Uwasekigata Park. Niigata City’s official festival release says 39 Musashino Art University students worked with local residents to create the five works, using rice straw harvested in Nishikan Ward together with materials including bamboo.

The children at its nose make the scale clear. Niigata City’s official 2019 gallery shows the completed bear, while the festival’s Instagram later shared a close look at the finishing work.

💡 Nerd Fact: The straw is not used in its loose form. Niigata City says it is first processed using Toba-Ami, a traditional method in which local farmers weave it into sheets. Once used across Japan, the technique is now practiced by very few people.

More: Inside the Wara Art Festival (12 Sculptures)

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🦢 “Bench, swan ends” — Maker Unknown, Smithsonian Gardens Collection 🇺🇸

This is one bench, not two. Smithsonian Gardens catalogs it as “Bench, swan ends,” a Victorian piece dating to about 1890. Its seat and back are painted wood, while two cast-iron swans form the ends and armrests.

From this angle, the two swans can look like separate seats, but they belong to a single 60-inch-wide bench. The collection record names no designer or foundry, so the maker remains unknown.

💡 Nerd Fact: Cast iron was the most popular material for garden furnishings from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Smithsonian Gardens attributes its spread to mass production during the Industrial Revolution, which made ornamental outdoor furniture widely available and affordable.

More: Creative Benches (27 Photos)

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✨ “Light My Fire” — By Tom Bob on 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, USA 🇺🇸

Tom Bob stenciled a green firefly around an existing wall light on a brick building. In his original post about the work, he titled it “Light My Fire” and placed it on 127th Street in Harlem.

The painted body and wings remain readable by day. After dark, the working lamp becomes the firefly’s glowing abdomen.

💡 Nerd Fact: A real firefly’s lamp is biochemical. In specialized abdominal organs, luciferin, luciferase enzymes, oxygen, and ATP generate the light; entomologists think the beetle controls each flash by regulating oxygen delivery.

More: Street Art by Creative Genius Tom Bob: Collection 2

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🌸 A Tiny Baby Opossum — By Hannah Bullen-Ryner in the UK 🇬🇧

Stone eyes, a pink petal nose, leaves, and feathers form the tiny opossum as it clings to a twig. In her post about the piece, Hannah Bullen-Ryner describes creating it while sitting on the woodland floor.

Her official website explains that she works with locally found natural materials and no permanent fixings. Once the arrangement disappears, the photograph is what remains.

💡 Nerd Fact: For comparison, a newborn Virginia opossum is only about 14 millimeters long after a gestation of 12–13 days. Smithsonian’s National Zoo says the young climb into the mother’s pouch immediately after birth and remain there for about two months while they develop.

More: Ephemeral Nature Art by Hannah Bullen-Ryner

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🐈‍⬛ Cat Waiting for Mouse — By LIZ ART BERLIN

LIZ ART BERLIN placed one of her black-cat paste-ups just above a real opening at pavement level. Beside the waiting cat, the gap reads as a mouse hole and completes the scene.

The Berlin-based artist is known for stencil-based paste-ups, often featuring cats. Here, the wall supplies the punchline.

💡 Nerd Fact: Domestic cats hear well into the ultrasonic range. Behavioral hearing tests measured a range of 48 hertz to 85 kilohertz at 70 dB SPL, while research on house mice records ultrasonic calls during close-range social interactions.

More: Cat Waiting for Mouse: 11 Paste-Ups

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🐒 “Barbary Baby and Mom Monkey” — By BORDALO II in Viseu, Portugal 🇵🇹

BORDALO II created this wall-mounted installation with Cubo Mágico near Cava de Viriato in Viseu in 2020. In his original post, the artist calls it “Barbary Baby and Mom Monkey.”

The mother and baby were assembled from discarded objects and other waste—the raw materials at the heart of BORDALO II’s Big Trash Animals. The components remain visible across both animals, turning what might have been thrown away into the embrace itself.

💡 Nerd Fact: Infant care in this species is not limited to females. Unlike most Old World monkeys, male Barbary macaques frequently associate with and care for infants shortly after birth, according to a behavioral study of the species.

More: Trash Art by BORDALO II in Viseu

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🐕 “Dog the Cat” — By Damon Belanger in Redwood City, California, USA 🇺🇸

A black metal bench appears to cast a long animal shadow with a round eye and curled tail. The bench itself is untouched; the gray shape is stenciled on the Broadway pavement just east of Middlefield Road.

In his original 2016 post, Belanger identifies it as “Dog the Cat” and calls it one of about 20 shadow pieces he painted around downtown Redwood City. The City of Redwood City documents the wider project as 20 stenciled sidewalk works installed through a partnership with the Redwood City Improvement Association.

💡 Nerd Fact: Belanger did not paint the series alone. KQED reported that he laid out each design in chalk with a stencil, while friends—including his wife and members of the selection committee—helped fill the outlines with paint.

More: Funny Fake Shadows by Damon Belanger

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🛶 “Nadine Navigates a Gullywasher” — By David Zinn

David Zinn uses the concrete channel and circular opening as rushing water for a tiny mouse paddling a wooden clog. In his original post, he gives the piece its exact title, “Nadine Navigates a Gullywasher,” and tags it as chalk art and “clearing a clog.”

Zinn’s official site says he improvises his temporary street drawings on location using only chalk, charcoal, and found objects. Here, the real drainage channel determines the direction of the drawn water.

💡 Nerd Fact: Nadine is a recurring figure rather than a one-off mouse: Zinn lists her among his three most enduring characters and calls her “a mouse of adventure.” The title also uses a dialectal weather term; a “gully washer” is a very heavy but usually brief fall of rain.

More: They Look Alive: Art by David Zinn

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🐈 Decorative Cat Signal — Creator Unknown in Zelenogradsk, Russia 🇷🇺

This is one of the decorative cat signals installed in the pedestrian zone beside Kotofeynya Square on Kurortny Prospekt. Local reporting says their red and green cat silhouettes alternate every 30 seconds and that visitors can use the signals as photo spots.

The red-orange cat sits while the green cat walks. No reliable credit for the designer has been identified.

💡 Nerd Fact: This display followed an earlier attempt. Kaliningrad.Ru reported that cat signals previously installed on a city street were removed at the traffic police’s request; local entrepreneurs then funded the replacements in the pedestrian zone.

More: Cat Lights in Zelenogradsk

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Which one is your favorite?