Street Art Utopia

When Trees Become Art (12 Photos)

By Vidar
Side-by-side photos of Jack Nicholson’s face painted on a tree in Ymittos, Greece, and Daniel Popper’s Ven a la Luz opening its chest around a leafy passage in Tulum, Mexico.

Tree sculptures, murals and art made with nature

A tree trunk becomes a giant hand, another holds a library, and real branches complete painted scenes. These 12 photos bring together tree sculptures, murals and a spiral made from fallen leaves.

More: When Street Art Meets Nature (40 Photos)

Daniel Popper’s wooden Ven a la Luz figure opens its chest around a leafy passage in Tulum, Mexico, with a visitor standing below.

🌳 Ven a la Luz (Come into the Light) — By Daniel Popper in Tulum, Mexico 🇲🇽

At Ahau Tulum, a giant figure opens its chest around a passage filled with greenery. Wood, rope and natural fibres cover its steel structure, forming a tree-like surface.

💡 Nerd Fact: Popper created Ven a la Luz for Tulum’s Art With Me festival in 2018. The sculpture stands 33 feet (about 10 metres) tall.

More: Daniel Popper’s Ven a la Luz in Tulum

🔗 Follow Daniel Popper on Instagram

Banyan roots spread in a rectangular grid between paving stones beside a walkway in Hong Kong.

🌱 Banyan Roots in Hong Kong 🇭🇰

Banyan roots spread across the paving in a grid that looks almost planned. There’s no painting or carving here, just roots growing between the paving stones.

More: Nature Meets Art (22 Photos)

Eva Oertli and Beat Huber’s giant concrete hand rises from the grass around the base of a living tree in Glarus, Switzerland.

🤲 Hand mit Parkbaum (Caring Hand) — By Eva Oertli & Beat Huber in Glarus, Switzerland 🇨🇭

Five concrete fingers rise around a living tree in Glarus’s Volksgarten. Eva Oertli and Beat Huber created Hand mit Parkbaum for Skulptura 04 in 2004. Originally intended as a temporary installation, it stayed after private donors funded its purchase.

More: The Caring Hand in Glarus

A black-and-white portrait of Jack Nicholson’s grinning face is painted on an exposed section of a tree trunk in Ymittos, Greece.

🎬 Wendy! I’m Home! — Tree Portrait in Ymittos, Greece 🇬🇷

A black-and-white portrait of Jack Nicholson’s character from The Shining fills an exposed section of the trunk. The uneven bark frames the face like the broken doorway in the film.

More: Wendy! I’m Home!

SMOK’s Pruning mural shows a figure holding scissors over a real tree outside De Vertellerij in Antwerp, Belgium.

✂️ Pruning — By SMOK in Antwerp, Belgium 🇧🇪

In Pruning, made for Berchem’s Fake Views project, SMOK aligns painted scissors and hands with a real tree, making the figure appear to trim its branches. The mural is at De Vertellerij, Turkooisstraat 18, a children’s library in Antwerp.

More: Fake Views by SMOK

📷 Photo by Ferdinand Feys.

🔗 Follow SMOK on Instagram

Lorenzo Quinn’s white sculpted hands cradle a small living tree above a lawn.

🌱 Give — By Lorenzo Quinn

White sculpted hands cradle a young tree just above the grass in Lorenzo Quinn’s Give.

More: Helping Hands (8 Photos)

🔗 Follow Lorenzo Quinn on Instagram

Adrien Martinetti’s mural of hands holding soil lines up with a real tree above a wall in Ajaccio, France.

🤲 Entre vos mains (In Your Hands) — By Adrien Martinetti in Ajaccio, France 🇫🇷

Painted hands hold soil beneath a real tree, aligning its trunk with the mural. Adrien Martinetti created Entre vos mains in 2022 around a theme chosen by students at Saint-Paul’s collège and lycée: imagining the future together.

More: In Your Hands by Adrien Martinetti

🔗 Follow Adrien Martinetti on Instagram

Wooden-framed book cupboards with glass doors are fitted into an old hollow tree trunk in René Bruns’s De (B)ruilboom in Ruurlo, Netherlands.

📚 De (B)ruilboom — By René Bruns in Ruurlo, Netherlands 🇳🇱

René Bruns built De (B)ruilboom in 2012, fitting ten glass-fronted book cupboards into an old sweet-chestnut trunk. Commissioned by the local neighbourhood association, this book-exchange tree stands at the corner of Batsdijk and Vorsterkampweg.

More: Tree Became a Library (+9 More Book Artworks)

Simon O’Rourke’s Giant Hand of Vyrnwy rises from a tall carved tree trunk with its fingers spread, surrounded by woodland in Wales, UK.

🖐️ Giant Hand of Vyrnwy — By Simon O’Rourke in Wales, UK 🇬🇧

At Lake Vyrnwy, a giant hand rises from a tall tree trunk, its open fingers reaching toward the canopy. Below the carved wrist and palm, the trunk remains rough.

💡 Nerd Fact: O’Rourke carved the Giant Hand of Vyrnwy from a storm-damaged tree in 2011. The carving took six days, and he added two pieces of wood for the thumb and little finger.

More: The Story Behind the Giant Hand of Vyrnwy

🔗 Visit Simon O’Rourke’s website.

Closely grouped human figures are carved up a branching tree trunk at Aburi Botanical Gardens in Ghana.

🌳 Tree of Life at Aburi Botanical Gardens, Ghana 🇬🇭

Human figures overlap from the base toward the branches of this carved tree at Aburi Botanical Gardens, with arms, faces and bodies fitted into the wood’s irregular surface. A firsthand account of the gardens credits the Tree of Life to Kofi Sale and places it on the main lawn near the fallen kapok tree.

More: Tree of Life (11 Photos)

Orange autumn leaves spiral across the forest floor and up a tree trunk in Jon Foreman’s Vortex at Little Milford Woods, Wales, UK.

🍂 Vortex at Little Milford Woods — By Jon Foreman in Wales, UK 🇬🇧

Orange leaves spiral across the dark forest floor and up a tree trunk. Jon Foreman created Vortex at Little Milford Woods in 2024.

More: 10 Forest Sculptures by Jon Foreman

🔗 Follow Jon Foreman on Instagram

David Zinn’s Nadine sits reading beneath a chalk-drawn tree with real creeping Jenny forming its canopy in Ann Arbor, USA.

📖 Nadine and the Chartreuse Respite — By David Zinn in Ann Arbor, USA 🇺🇸

Nadine rests beneath a drawn tree whose canopy is a real patch of creeping Jenny. David Zinn created Nadine and the Chartreuse Respite with chalk and charcoal in Ann Arbor on May 16, 2021, connecting the branches to the edge of the planting bed.

More: Happy Art by David Zinn (10 Photos)

🔗 Follow David Zinn on Instagram

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Discussion 29 comments

  22. Number 4 is Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.

    Reply

    2. The title is “Wendy I’m Home”…Jack’s wife in The Shining was named Wendy, so it kind of was mentioned.

      Reply

  23. Tree of life. I would like to know more about the store the art tells about the community.

    Reply

  24. Trees are ART! However too few humans fail to realise this. What is wonderful we have ARTISTS with extraordinary vision and talent that inspires awareness and thought.
    By the way, these trees are dead and would cut down if not for the insight to permit extending their long fe in a new form.

    Reply

  25. @streetartutopia Trees are art without any additional adornment. To my mind, this is defacing and disrespecting trees. Other people may think differently, but this is how I feel about it.

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