Who Comes Up With This Stuff? (8 Photos)

September 11, 2026

By Vidar

A hungry head and a very relaxed squirrel

In these eight works, the joke often depends on what surrounds the art—or who steps into the picture.

😮 Yin & Yang — By Robert Arneson at UC Davis, California, USA 🇺🇸

A visitor puts one leg into the open mouth of one of Robert Arneson’s Yin & Yang heads. The 1992 work stands in front of Wright Hall at UC Davis.

💡 Nerd Fact: The heads are made from painted bronze. When UC Davis could not afford all five Egghead proposals, Arneson agreed to sell them for their fabrication cost, with his estate retaining the right to produce further casts. Other editions of the sculptures exist.

🦏 Horn Solo — By Falko One in Cape Town, South Africa 🇿🇦

In Horn Solo, Falko One paints a rhino below the skyline, leaving the hill behind the wall to complete its missing horn. A cloud continues the shape above the hill.

💡 Nerd Fact: The idea for Falko’s Once Upon a Town project grew out of a week in Delft, South Africa. After each day’s programme, he added a small artwork to a local home. Residents began anticipating the next painting, prompting him to extend the approach to other towns.

More: Art by Falko One

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🐿️ Nathan Redefines “Squirrelly” — By David Zinn 🇺🇸

Nathan stretches out on a wooden step, with his head drawn on the riser. Zinn’s caption reads: “Nathan’s life goal is to redefine ‘squirrelly.’”

💡 Nerd Fact: Zinn’s move into sidewalk drawing began as a way to leave his computer on sunny days. In his account of choosing chalk, he says he let himself go outside as long as he kept drawing.

More: Chalk Art by David Zinn

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🧱 Lego-Brücke — By MEGX in Wuppertal, Germany 🇩🇪

MEGX, also known as Martin Heuwold, turns the underside of a former railway bridge into giant toy bricks. Painted circles and shadows suggest the hollow bottoms of LEGO pieces, while the road and cars below show their scale.

💡 Nerd Fact: The 2011 project over Schwesterstraße covered approximately 250 square metres and took four weeks, according to Heuwold’s project account. Its popularity led to a second LEGO-style bridge in Wuppertal in 2020.

📄 Paper Storm — Yamada Taro in Niigata, Japan 🇯🇵

A visitor jumps as papers fly above the bronze bat, turning Yamada Taro’s swing into an office disaster. The character comes from Shinji Mizushima’s baseball manga Dokaben and stands on Furumachi-dori 5-bancho in Niigata.

💡 Nerd Fact: The seven bronze manga characters were installed during the shopping arcade’s 2002 renovation. The project began when local shopkeepers approached Mizushima directly for permission. The author was born in Niigata and had attended the city’s Hakushin Junior High School.

📡 Satellite Telescopes — By graffiti4hire in Birmingham, UK 🇬🇧

Four real satellite dishes across a brick wall become giant telescopes for four tiny onlookers. BuzzFeed’s Birmingham guide credits graffiti4hire with this work near the Custard Factory.

💡 Nerd Fact: The nearby Custard Factory was built in 1906 to manufacture Bird’s custard. Chemist Alfred Bird had invented the egg-free custard powder in 1837 because his wife was allergic to eggs.

More: Street Art in Digbeth, Birmingham

📷 Photo by Davyd Samuels.

🧯 Moe on Fire Duty — By EFIX 🇫🇷

In EFIX’s firefighter scene, Moe takes a cigarette break in his firefighter’s uniform, with a real fire extinguisher at his back.

💡 Nerd Fact: In a 2020 interview, EFIX said he sometimes dressed as a municipal cleaner to observe reactions to his street art. He described sitting nearby in the outfit and watching passers-by, particularly children, encounter the finished work.

More: EFIX’s Clever Art

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🍄 Mushroom Ballerinas — By Fruktyvrukty in Yekaterinburg, Russia 🇷🇺

Two paper ballerinas use shelf fungi growing out of a tree as skirts. In his Mushroom series, Fruktyvrukty places the figures above and below the fungi.

💡 Nerd Fact: The brackets are spore-producing fruiting bodies. Depending on the fungus, they may last one season or persist for several years. The Royal Horticultural Society explains that most bracket fungi decay a tree’s heartwood and disperse their spores on the wind.

More: 11 Photos of Mushroom Ballerinas by Fruktyvrukty

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