Being Human (8 Photos)

Street art about being human

In Ravine-Sèche, Haiti, a real girl sits framed in a hole in a ruined wall, next to a painted girl in almost the same striped top. All eight works here are about care, closeness and the need to be seen.

More: Being Human (10 Photos)

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🕊️ Freedom — By Zenos Frudakis in Philadelphia, USA 🇺🇸

The bronze figures read as one body moving through stages: stuck in the wall, struggling, tearing free, then stepping into open space. Zenos Frudakis’s sculpture stands at 16th and Vine Streets in Philadelphia, outside the former GlaxoSmithKline building. The empty hollow in the wall is deliberate: “I literally left a place people could step into,” he told WHYY.

💡 Nerd Fact: Freedom was dedicated on June 18, 2001. On his page for the sculpture, Frudakis calls it an expression of the human desire for liberty and reveals a hidden detail: a small arrangement of cast coins in the background that refers to his birth date, 7-7-51.

More: 8 Powerful Public Sculptures That Celebrate Strength, Freedom and Human Spirit

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🐻 “Bear With Me” — By Getting Up To Stuff in Bristol, UK 🇬🇧

A hooded figure sits on a brick arch with their face in their hands, and a small bear stays close. The anonymous artist Getting Up To Stuff first installed it in September 2020 for World Suicide Prevention Day, in a nook above Jacob’s Wells Road, near the bridge from Upper Berkeley Close to the West End car park.

💡 Nerd Fact: In August 2023, the artist put the piece back in place after replacing its frame and the original bear and anchoring it more firmly, Bristol24/7 reported. The report also describes a sign pointing people to the local charity Suicide Prevention Bristol.

More: Bear With Me in Bristol (6 Photos)

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🤍 “La sandía de Joe” — By Alba Fabre Sacristán in Carballo, Spain 🇪🇸

A man rests his head against a seated woman on a bed that fills the whole gable, with a small watermelon painting on the wall above them. Alba Fabre Sacristán painted it at Avenida da Milagrosa 23 for Rexenera Fest 2022. The festival sets the man’s fragility, vulnerability and sensitivity against the strength and composure of the woman.

💡 Nerd Fact: The dialogue with the mural next door was not planned. Fabre chose her theme before learning that her wall would face another painting of a couple, Blade Trinity by Iván Floro (Van Vúu), the festival says.

More: Male Fragility by Alba Fabre Sacristán

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Quick question: guess the city

A mermaid mother on a gable wall. Where was she painted?

ADundeeBGreenockCAberdeenDPerth

Just show me

Show answer

Greenock, Scotland 🇬🇧

🧜‍♀️ Mermaid Mother — By SMUG in Greenock, Scotland 🇬🇧

A mother feeds her child while her mermaid tail fills the lower wall. SMUG (Sam Bates) finished the mural in February 2022 on a tenement gable on Nicolson Street. The local infant-feeding team, the Scottish Government’s breastfeeding program and Oak Tree Housing Association were behind the project, part of a campaign to normalize breastfeeding in Inverclyde.

More: 24 Times SMUG Made Walls Look More Real Than Life

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🌍 Play our Guess the City quiz: 8 more cities →

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📱 Modern Love — By Levalet in Hermonville, France 🇫🇷

Romeo and Juliet in the phone era: on a stone wall in the French village of Hermonville, she looks out of a drawn window, he leans against the wall below, and both look down at their screens. Levalet draws his figures in Chinese ink and places them so they interact with the architecture around them.

More: Modern Love by Levalet

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👴 A Grandfather Lifts a Child — By Claudio Morne in San Pietro Magisano, Italy 🇮🇹

An old man in a flat cap holds up a small girl, and she reaches for his face. Behind them, a rainbow-edged heart spans the building. Morne, the Calabrian artist Claudio Chiaravalloti, painted the mural for LuceFest, a festival that has also brought Eduardo Kobra and Alice Pasquini to San Pietro Magisano.

📷 Photo: Mario Gentile

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🧱 “Camsize and friend” — By Seth in Ravine-Sèche, Haiti 🇭🇹

Seth’s painted girl crouches beside a hole in a turquoise wall, turned toward a real girl who sits inside the opening. He painted the wall in March 2019 on a trip through Haiti with photographer Martha Cooper. The trip fed into Made in Haiti, their joint exhibition about the creativity of Haitian children on the street, shown at Fabien Castanier Gallery in Miami that May.

More: 34 Murals That Turn Walls Into Wonders: Seth’s Street Art

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🧔 A Giant Portrait and a Man Beside It — By DanyArt in San Antonio de Cortés, Honduras 🇭🇳

An older man’s face fills the wall: deep lines, a gray mustache, eyes turned slightly away. Beside it stands a man in a light blue checked shirt with the same mustache. The painted face is taller than he is.

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Which one is your favorite?