11 Murals by Studio Giftig

Real people enter impossible worlds.

Across 11 murals in the United States and Europe, Studio Giftig turns portraits into stories about music, memory, trust, and place. The scale is monumental, but the encounters feel personal.

Meet Studio Giftig: two artists, one visual language

Studio Giftig is the Dutch artist duo of Niels van Swaemen, born in Eindhoven in 1981, and Kaspar van Leek, born in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten, in 1983. They met in 2007, began working in an empty warehouse, and committed fully to their art in 2012.

The name came from that first warehouse. They stored their paint and spray cans in a room intended for toxic materials; giftig means “toxic” in Dutch. Their murals, by contrast, often focus on trust, care, age, identity, music, and the small ways people connect.

Their process is unusually personal. They photograph their own models and objects, then build an original composition for each wall. That matters when the subjects include a 103-year-old local woman, two generations sharing an embrace, or musicians from different worlds. The people are not decoration; they are the reason for each picture.

Their mural Trashure took first place in Street Art Cities’ Best of 2022, and Echoes of Harmony won the 2024 Expert Spotlight category. Both awards reflect the duo’s wider signature: monumental murals that still feel like close encounters.

Across these murals, one pattern keeps returning: the closer the face feels, the stranger the world around it becomes.

🔗 Follow Studio Giftig on Instagram and explore the duo’s official portfolio

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🌼 “Inner Peace” — St. Petersburg, Florida, USA 🇺🇸

A woman lies against a mirror, yet both she and her reflection meet our eyes. That should not be possible, and that is the point. Studio Giftig created Inner Peace for Reggae Rise Up at Vinoy Park, with Ashlynn Davan as the model. The golden chrysanthemum stands for happiness, health, and loyalty, while the impossible double gaze turns self-reflection into something the viewer has to enter.

💡 Art Fact: In East Asian ink-painting traditions, the chrysanthemum is one of the “Four Gentlemen,” alongside plum blossom, orchid, and bamboo. The Metropolitan Museum of Art identifies the quartet as a favored subject of literati painters.

More: When Nature Becomes Art (12 Photos)

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🐦 “Silent Reflection” — Lommel, Belgium 🇧🇪

The bird, the woman, and the viewer form a quiet triangle. A song thrush rests on her finger while pale reflections cross the glass-like surface. In Silent Reflection, those details connect the work to Lommel. Local reporting ties the reflected landscape to the Sahara nature reserve, the thrush to culture and experience, and the elderberries to regional produce; it also notes that ideas and drawings from residents helped shape the final design. Brenda Ketelaars modeled for the mural, painted on the sports hall at ’t Stekske, Luikersteenweg 460.

💡 History Fact: Lommel’s “Sahara” is partly the result of industry. Construction of a zinc and sulfuric acid factory began in 1904; cadmium and lead emissions destroyed nearby heath vegetation, and by the 1930s wind across the exposed ground had produced about 600 hectares of drifting sand. Visit Lommel records this history.

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🤍 “Soul Flora – Trust Part 2” — Wuppertal, Germany 🇩🇪

The building is large. The gesture is not. An older woman closes her eyes and holds a younger woman close while white roses grow through their clothes and drift into the dark wall. Studio Giftig describes the work as a tribute to love, wisdom, and quiet trust between generations, with the roses symbolizing the purity of the bond. Sophie van Helvoort and Marianne Jansen were the models. The mural was created for Urbaner KunstRaum Wuppertal at Lenneper Str. 28.

💡 Nerd Fact: The title “Part 2” marks a series that crosses media. Studio Giftig’s portfolio lists the earlier gallery works Soul Flora, Trust and Soul Flora, Elegance, followed by mural branches including Trust Part 2, Elegance Part 2, and Resurgence.

More: Made You Feel Connected (8 Photos)

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🛟 “Safe Return” — Morlaix, France 🇫🇷

She looks past us, not at us. Safe Return imagines a fisherman’s wife waiting for her husband to come home. Maritime objects gather around her, while tobacco leaves rise behind her as a direct link to the former tobacco factory at Morlaix’s port. The model was Ria Klessens. The official 2021 Morlaix Arts Tour guide locates the mural at 2bis voie d’accès au port. The wall carries local history, but the wait needs no translation.

💡 History Fact: The Morlaix tobacco factory was built between 1736 and 1740 to designs by architect Jean-François Blondel. It employed about 1,800 people at its peak and remained a tobacco works until 2004. Espace des Sciences de Morlaix preserves the site’s chronology.

More: Safe Return — Mural by Studio Giftig in Morlaix, France

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🎶 “Echoes of Harmony” — Eindhoven, Netherlands 🇳🇱

A street musician and a concert violinist meet in an embrace on the façade of Muziekgebouw Eindhoven at Jan van Lieshoutstraat 11. One cups a harmonica; the other holds a violin. Studio Giftig built the mural around music’s ability to break down barriers and bring people together, using Bert and Luka van de Looij as models. Commissioned by Eindhoven City Council, the work won Street Art Cities’ 2024 Expert Spotlight category.

💡 Nerd Fact: The models are father and daughter rather than the street musician and concert violinist they represent. Luka van de Looij said she cannot play the violin, while Bert van de Looij said he cannot read music; their real musical connection is the music café they run in Veldhoven. Omroep Brabant recorded their account.

More: Street Art With Its Own Soundtrack (10 Photos)

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🍎 “River of Knowledge” — Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA 🇺🇸

The teal wall behaves like deep water, but the apples glow as if they carry their own light. Studio Giftig calls the work River of Knowledge, with Venus Karim as the model. Downtown Fort Wayne and Art This Way brought the mural to the north-facing wall at 206 Pearl Street. The water refers to Fort Wayne’s three rivers; the apples connect Johnny Appleseed with knowledge, insight, and ideas taking root.

💡 History Fact: Johnny Appleseed was the historical nurseryman John Chapman, not just a folklore figure. Chapman bought land east of Fort Wayne in 1834, including a 42-acre nursery planted with 15,000 trees; he died in 1845, and the precise location of his grave remains disputed. Visit Fort Wayne summarizes the local record.

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🌸 “Belfast Spring” — Belfast, Northern Ireland 🇬🇧

Blue flax flowers open across a lavender wall while loose petals pass in front of Nienke Geven’s face. Painted for Hit the North on James Street South, the mural connects its flowers to Belfast’s linen history and to the idea of beginning again. The Linen Quarter BID documents it as a 12-metre-high commission on a former linen mill. The building’s past is not hidden by the image; it is the reason the flowers are there.

💡 History Fact: Between 1870 and 1914, Belfast’s central position in Irish linen production earned it the name “Linenopolis.” The Linen Hall notes that the industry shaped the city’s growth and the buildings in which linen was made, embellished, and traded.

More: Studio Giftig’s Flax Flower Mural at Hit the North 2023

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🌈 “Kleur” — Deventer, Netherlands 🇳🇱

An older woman’s face anchors children, pigeons, leaves, a streetlamp, and fragments of Deventer. The mural covers more than 100 square metres on Deltalaan and was created with Dutch musician Snelle, inspired by his song Kleur. Street Art Streets documents the local details: Bergstraat and Bergkerk, pigeons from the song’s video, leaves from Deventer’s old Bakenboom, and Pleun’s Regenboogijsje hidden as an Easter egg. Bep Spa, Sumchog Kersbergen, Sarah, and Jesper modeled for the composition.

💡 Nerd Fact: Deventer’s old Bakenboom was not simply a famous tree. Municipal planning records identify it as a former navigation marker for shipping on the IJssel, so the reference carries a maritime history as well as a botanical one. The City of Deventer records that function.

More: Art That Completely Changes the City (8 Photos)

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❤️ “Wild Hearts” — The Hague, Netherlands 🇳🇱

A 50-metre wall turns into a vertical rush of floating figures and fragments of life. Wild Hearts takes its cue from the song by DI-RECT and its theme of following your own path and living fully. Studio Giftig describes figures opening their coats as a “light of life” falls across scenes from a life in motion. Bregje van Gerwen and Jan-Henk van Ieperen modeled for the central figures. The Hague’s official visitor guide highlights street art across the city; the exact wall is at Willem Dreespark 196.

💡 Music Fact: DI-RECT formed in The Hague in 1999, making the song-based wall a hometown commission. The band’s artist profile records its Hague origin, while Studio Giftig identifies Wild Hearts as the fifth work in its Music & Murals series.

More: See the 50-Metre Wild Hearts Mural (7 Photos)

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🌼 “Petals of Time” — Ticonderoga, New York, USA 🇺🇸

Belva Blood was 103 when Studio Giftig painted her portrait across the rear of 119 Montcalm Street. She looks upward while white chrysanthemums and green leaves move around the building’s windows. Walls Between Waters connects the flowers to purity, longevity, and continuity, and to the way knowledge and stories pass between generations. Studio Giftig’s own account describes Belva as someone who has meant a great deal to Ticonderoga. The mural gives that community memory a name, a face, and more than a century of lived experience.

💡 Place-Name Fact: The project name Walls Between Waters is local wordplay rather than a generic title. Ticonderoga’s official history gives the town’s name the approximate meaning “the place between two waters”, referring to its position between Lake George and Lake Champlain.

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🏀 “Look Up” — Voiron, France 🇫🇷

A young girl looks toward an older athlete as basketballs, fabric, and iris flowers rise through electric blue light. The title works in both directions: look up at the wall, and look up to somebody who makes a future feel possible. Created for Street Art Fest Grenoble-Alpes at 88 Avenue Philippe Vial, the mural was rooted in a social project helping children enter local sports clubs. Studio Giftig explains that the iris flowers symbolize inspiration and that the older athlete is meant as a figure the child can look up to.

💡 Sports Fact: Pays Voironnais Basket Club is a women’s basketball club founded in 2012 as the successor to Étoile de Voiron. The club records that institutional succession on its official site, giving the mural’s mentorship theme a specifically local women’s-sport history.

More: “Look Up” by Studio Giftig in Voiron, France

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Which one is your favorite?