Art Is Full of Surprises (16 Photos)
By Vidar
A giant rooster and a woman made from willow branches
These sixteen works bring together painted illusions, sculptures and land art, from a tiny chalk mouse to a building full of butterflies.
🐓 Big Rooster — By Odeith in Sintra, Portugal 🇵🇹
A rooster fills two concrete walls and the ground between them in Alcolombal, Sintra. Odeith stands on a chair beside its beak. His 2019 process video condenses six hours of painting into one minute. Photo: 1904manuel (CC BY-SA 4.0; cropped in the cover).
More: See more by Odeith
🐐 Baby Goat — By Hannah Bullen-Ryner
Hannah Bullen-Ryner assembled this goat from found natural materials, including feathers, twigs and seeds. The blue-green fragments around its face are naturally colored spalted wood, a find she highlighted in her original post. Pale feathers form the tousled coat.
💡 Nerd Fact: Blue-green staining in wood can be produced by xylindein, a pigment made by Chlorociboria fungi. Renaissance craftspeople used this naturally stained wood in intarsia, assembling pictures from fitted pieces of wood. Microscopic examination identified the fungus in surviving Italian Renaissance examples.
More: See more by Hannah Bullen-Ryner
🪑 Composition of a Human Body with a Metal Chair — By Artez in Kumanovo, North Macedonia 🇲🇰
On the side of a building, a barefoot woman holds an acrobatic pose with one foot on a folding chair’s yellow seat. Artez painted the 2026 work as part of his Simple Acrobatics series, with support from Forma Kumanovo, at Egejska Makedonija 14. The pose fits between the building’s real windows.
More: See more by Artez
📦 Nadine and the Box Fort Challenge — By David Zinn in Michigan, USA 🇺🇸
In Nadine and the Box Fort Challenge, a cat sits in a cardboard box drawn on the pavement, while tiny Nadine stands beside it holding a loop of string. The cat stares ahead with green eyes, and shadows make the drawn box look solid.
More: See more by David Zinn
🌬️ Stillness in Motion: The Matka Series (Poland) — By Olga Ziemska in Orońsko, Poland 🇵🇱
Olga Ziemska formed this standing woman from locally reclaimed willow branches and metal at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko in 2002. The temporary sculpture began her Matka series, named for the Polish word for “mother”. Long branches sweep behind the body like hair in the wind.
🏠 Malachite — By Shozy in Yekaterinburg, Russia 🇷🇺
Shozy painted Malachite for STENOGRAFFIA in 2019 at 8V Ulitsa 8 Marta in Yekaterinburg. The green surface appears to wrinkle, tear and peel away, making the solid corner look like thin plastic wrapping.
More: See more by Shozy
🐦 Blue Wren and Blossoms — By Geoffrey Carran in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺
Geoffrey Carran completed this Carlton North mural in March 2022 at 172 Curtain Street. A male superb fairywren perches among pink blossoms against the dark wall. The mural gave the North Carlton Art House its name. Photo: George Kayne.
💡 Nerd Fact: A 2012 study of superb fairywrens found that chicks learn elements of their mother’s call before hatching and reproduce them when begging for food. Eggs transferred to other nests produced chicks whose calls most closely matched their foster mother’s. The researchers concluded that these vocal “passwords” help adults identify parasitic cuckoo chicks.
More: Geoffrey Carran’s blue wren mural in Melbourne
🪨 Lux Tenebris — By Jon Foreman in Pensarn, Wales, UK 🇬🇧
Jon Foreman made Lux Tenebris as his final piece of 2021 on Pensarn Beach in Abergele. Two sweeping curves rise from small pebbles into rows of larger upright stones, with seawater washing around the edges.
More: See more by Jon Foreman
🦍 Watch Your (Silver)back — By SMOK in Dendermonde, Belgium 🇧🇪
A gorilla’s face fills the house wall, framed by flowing blue, orange and yellow forms. SMOK painted Watch Your (Silver)back for ViewMasters in 2021, commissioned by the city of Dendermonde. The mural stands at Boonwijkstraat 50, beside a pedestrian crossing.
More: See more by SMOK
🦋 La colección de Ontinyent — By Mantra in Ontinyent, Spain 🇪🇸
Mantra turned an apartment building’s end wall into a tall butterfly specimen cabinet. Painted wooden edges and shadows beneath the wings create the illusion of a display case behind the trees. He painted La colección de Ontinyent freehand in May 2022 for the MurArt festival, curated by Dull Studio.
More: See more by Mantra
👤 Andreas — By ZABOU in Athienou, Cyprus 🇨🇾
ZABOU painted this seven-by-four-meter portrait of Andreas on the side of his great-grandparents’ house in Athienou in 2023. The boy stands beside the enormous grayscale portrait of himself. Photo: ZABOU.
More: See more by ZABOU
🔱 Poseidon — By Braga Last One in Torreilles, France 🇫🇷
Poseidon appears inside a ruined temple painted onto the curved wall of Torreilles’ former cooperative winery. Braga Last One painted the mural in July 2022 for Les Billes s’Agitent, using a trident, broken columns and deep shadows to create a false opening through the turquoise facade.
More: Braga Last One’s Poseidon mural
🦖 Dinosaur in the Street — By Nikolaj Arndt
A dinosaur’s head seems to push through broken asphalt as spectators sit along the street. Nikolaj Arndt uses perspective and painted shadows to make the flat surface look deep.
More: See more by Nikolaj Arndt
🦝 Big Raccoon — By Bordalo II in Lisbon, Portugal 🇵🇹
Discarded materials form the ears, eyes and striped face of Bordalo II’s Big Raccoon. This photograph shows the original 2015 installation in Belém, created for his solo exhibition at Arte Periférica. When the building was scheduled for demolition, he adapted and reinstalled the work in Chelas as Re-Raccoon in 2025.
More: See more by Bordalo II
🐺 Girl With Wolf Hat — By Nikita & Sébastien SWEO in La Motte-Servolex, France 🇫🇷
A girl in a wolf hood appears among turquoise graffiti forms that seem to fold out from the wall. Nikita and Sébastien SWEO created the mural for Le M.U.R in January 2022, at Esplanade Pergaud on Rue des Allobroges. Photo: Gaëtan.
More: See more by Nikita & Sébastien SWEO
🚲 Genial é Andar de Bike — By Eduardo Kobra in São Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷
Albert Einstein rides toward the viewer against red and blue stripes in Eduardo Kobra’s Genial é Andar de Bike, painted in 2015 at Rua Oscar Freire 944. Kobra created it while São Paulo was debating bicycles and urban mobility. The mural was painted over in January 2018.
💡 Nerd Fact: The Caltech Archives hold a photograph of Einstein cycling on 6 February 1933. Caltech trustee Ben Meyer took it at his home in Santa Barbara, California. Evelina Hale donated the photograph to the archives in 1959.
More: See more by Eduardo Kobra
Which one is your favorite?
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