Made You Scared (8 Photos)

Not all public art is friendly.

A mailbox has teeth, a sea-serpent skeleton lies in the tide and masked bronze figures sit together. None of these 8 works is especially welcoming.

More: Beautifully Terrifying (9 Photos)

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📮 Mailbox Monster — By Damon Belanger in Redwood City, California, USA 🇺🇸

At the downtown post office on Jefferson Avenue, a blue mailbox appears to cast a hunched, toothy monster. The San Francisco Chronicle documented “Mailbox Monster” there in May 2016 as part of Damon Belanger’s downtown shadow-art project.

💡 Nerd Fact: A 2016 local report records that Belanger made the 20-work series with stencils and gray paint formulated for concrete. He installed the works between February and May and named “Mailbox Monster” as one of his two favorites.

More: Funny Fake Shadows by Damon Belanger

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🐍 “Serpent d’océan” — By Huang Yong Ping in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France 🇫🇷

A gigantic sea-serpent skeleton lies at Pointe de Mindin, where the Loire estuary meets the Atlantic. It rests on exposed sand at low tide and is partly submerged when the water rises.

💡 Nerd Fact: Saint-Brevin’s tourism office records the 2012 skeleton as 130 meters long with 135 vertebrae. The official Estuaire itinerary lists it as a permanent work and says its curve echoes the nearby Saint-Nazaire Bridge.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsSerpent d’océanHuang Yong Ping · 2012 · Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, FranceAluminium skeletonEstuaire 201234 foundation micropiles1Thirty-four micropiles, each 140 mm in diameter, anchor the sculpture into rock.ETPO project sheet2Its spine echoes the Saint-Nazaire Bridge, while its pose recalls the coast’s fishing cabins.Le Voyage à Nantes201214 JunLe Monde: installed at Mindin202211 AprTenth-anniversary coverage202524 SepTown confirms maintenance on site202620 AugVisitor feature; photo date unknownRead the full file →

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🏚️ Greenpoint Skull — By Greg Suits (Suitswon) in Brooklyn, New York, USA 🇺🇸

At the East River waterfront near Oak and West Streets, two openings in a ruined industrial building became hollow eye sockets. Suitswon’s own post showed the finished skull on May 3, 2017, and contemporary coverage by Colossal documented how the painted nose, teeth and jaw completed the face.

💡 Nerd Fact: In an interview with UP Magazine, Suits said he returned to the site at 1 a.m., improvised a climbing aid from discarded planks and painted for four hours. The porous wall absorbed about seven cans of paint and still did not produce a completely solid fill.

🔗 Follow Suitswon on Instagram · Photo by Luna Park

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⚖️ “The Magistrate” — By Philip Jackson (Location unconfirmed)

The tall bronze figure has folded arms, a sharply flared headdress and a small polished mask. Its rough, dark patina gives way to finer detail around the hands and face.

💡 Nerd Fact: Jackson’s official listing identifies it as a bronze from an edition of eight, measuring 218 cm high, 110 cm wide and 87 cm deep. Catto Gallery connects its severity and mask to Jackson’s long fascination with post-Renaissance Venice.

More: Haunting Sculptures by Philip Jackson

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💛 Marge Simpson on a Fire-Damaged House — By Shipao in Arkhangelsk, Russia 🇷🇺

At 6 Kotlasskaya Street, the blackened opening of a damaged wooden house forms Marge Simpson’s towering hair. A building archive records that the house was vacated in July 2023 and damaged by fire that August. Shipao’s own caption supplies the punchline: “I think I know who the arsonist is.”

💡 Nerd Fact: The Associated Press reports that Matt Groening combined the Bride of Frankenstein’s hair with a 1960s hairstyle worn by his mother when designing Marge’s beehive.

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👑 “The Grandees” — By Philip Jackson (Location unconfirmed)

Two monumental figures sit beneath angular hoods, their small gold-toned masks peering from folds of dark bronze. They look as if they have been holding the same silent meeting for several centuries.

💡 Nerd Fact: Jackson’s official listing identifies it as a 271 × 231 × 178 cm bronze from an edition of three.

More: Haunting Sculptures by Philip Jackson

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🎩 “Bawon Sanmdi” — By SKEM in Guadeloupe, French West Indies 🇬🇵

CaribeArt’s regional street-art archive identifies the signed, 2021 work as “Bawon Sanmdi” by SKEM in Guadeloupe. The portrait uses the top hat, cross and death imagery associated with Bawon Samdi, whom the Fowler Museum describes as chief of the Gede family of Vodou spirits.

💡 Nerd Fact: The Gede are not restricted to death symbolism. The Fowler Museum’s teaching guide describes them as spirits of sexual regeneration as well as the ancestral dead, and notes that they may act as tricksters, counselors and healers with a special concern for children.

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👁️ “MOMO” — By DavidL in the Barcelona area, Spain 🇪🇸

A wide-eyed face fills the wall of an abandoned room. Its painted black hair continues across the floor and winds between two old television sets. DavidL’s original post dates “MOMO” to 2019 and says it was inspired by Keisuke Aiso’s sculpture “Mother Bird,” the figure later appropriated as the face of the viral Momo hoax.

💡 Nerd Fact: Keisuke Aiso created Mother Bird for a ghost-themed exhibition in Ginza in 2016 and based it on the ubume. The British Museum defines an ubume as the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth and cannot find peace because she remains concerned for her child.

More: Surreal Art by DavidL

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