Being Human (8 Photos)
By Vidar
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)
🕊️ 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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A mermaid mother on a gable wall. Where was she painted?
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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📱 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
🔗 Follow Claudio Morne on Instagram
🧱 “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.
🔗 Follow DanyArt on Instagram
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34 Murals That Turn Walls Into Wonders: Seth’s Street Art Will Blow Your Mind
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🏘️ Intricately Carved Tree Stump — Newnham on Severn, UK 🇬🇧
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🐉 Dragon in the Brick — By David Zinn
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🦈 Au temps des mégalodons — By SEYB in Savigné-sur-Lathan, France 🇫🇷
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🎃 Cinderella’s Coach — By Banksy in Weston-super-Mare, England 🇬🇧
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🦉 Owl Sculptures in a Tree Stump — Near Rufforth, UK 🇬🇧
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🎩 “Alice in Wonderland” — By Vera Bugatti and Carlos Alberto GH in Brande, Denmark 🇩🇰
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🌳 “UMI” — By Daniel Popper, photographed in Lisle, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸
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😵 “Hell Is Round the Corner” — By Bifido in Gambettola, Italy 🇮🇹
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🐊 Pipe Alligator — By Tom Bob in New Haven, Connecticut, USA 🇺🇸
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🌊 “Direct” — By Jon Foreman at Poppit Sands, Wales 🇬🇧
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⚓ Gabriel — By Djoels in Ondarroa, Spain 🇪🇸
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🦝 “Alice Has a Special Window for Proclamations or Soliloquies, Depending on Whether Anyone Is Listening” — By David Zinn
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🪻 Portrait with an Iris — By Adventis near Antequera, Spain 🇪🇸
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🐆 A Leopard From Nature — By Hannah Bullen-Ryner
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🗝️ “Alice” — By Flow Graffiti Art in Bouville, France 🇫🇷
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🌼 “Petals of Time” — By Studio Giftig in Ticonderoga, New York, USA 🇺🇸
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🚆 Train Through the Warehouse — By Odeith
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🌸 Matryoshka Cement Mixer
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🐝 “Mimic Wasp” — By Odeith
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🎺 “Opowieść śródecka z trębaczem na dachu i kotem w tle” — Concept by Radosław Barek in Poznań, Poland 🇵🇱
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👠 “The Glass Slipper” — By Philip Jackson
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🍪 Cookie Monster Bin
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🏠 “Dear Old Thing” — By GRAFFMATT in Bristol, England, UK 🇬🇧
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🌿 True Nature — By Daniel Popper in Cancún, Mexico 🇲🇽
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Too long .. staying in there .. wer one is release… Freedomly.. wer the rest waiting for their turn to release… FrEedom… Yeah
It makes you think of ties gone by, I loved being with my grandparents, really missed them when they were gone.This is such a beautiful mural .
Shite like that black statue get fuct
A touching story about a little girl and her grandfather, for the whole of Italy to see. A caring, supportive grasp around his precious little girl. Nothing he is ashamed off, and one of my proudest works bringing this to life and capturing the essence of memories, family, daring behaviour, and fun. I just love how it is years old, and it causes quite a stir when locals drive by and remember the fond words… their grandparents said. I think it is the perfect love heart in the colours. No words for how long it took and the time taken. I’ll never forget that helping hand and soft, kind voice. Safety in being outside, and always waiting for that again. I’ll behave here in Australia. Spread word checkers. It’s this one we tell. My jacket caused problems also. Something to do. The shirt in the park… hardly Mufusa. They will never know, until they meet you. Remember, I will if I have to but looks can be appeasing. From there… I am not sure. From here. Almost impossible.
They burst out of the wall, and ran around and terrified everyone that was there. I think it is worth sharing but not something humans need to be involved in for inspiration or actual artwork. Nice try ruining Banksy all those years ago. You’ll always be nearby… keeping your children on leashes, with tags, vaccinated, desexed, and muzzled. Wasn’t that narrated live to Banksy’s home country while busy at work wondering why you would want Banksy or assume Banksy is a male? The fandom is sickening. D12 then Banksy Kate? Don’t even start on me saying this on my own website when you are the one that never shuts up in my home country. Seriously, your fans here are just weird and we all laugh when we meet each other in the streets. It started off as a good idea, but they know. Collect Banksy photos or make canvases, and pretend like them it never happened. Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom for example. No Ireland anything you crazies here in my home country.
A worthwhile moment in the career of Banksy. I think me and my bear will take a break from art, and the days needed for these pieces. There are over 100 around the world… it’s nothing new. As if I have spent anytime here with any of you in the past twenty years really. Despair when you ignore the issue and carry on in your comments and likes. I really haven’t been around much, and who knew it was such a problem travelling alot for this. Do you ever not know where Banksy is?
Despair is haunting,but the touch of the bear restores that we are not alone…
The detail is incredible.
🙂↕️ yes
I didn’t know my grandparents but I hope they where like this.
I feel just like that right now, hopeless & sad. Bear with me are the perfect words. I love this, thank you.❤️
Absolutely beautiful & a reminder our freedoms are being taken away.
Just wonderful and touching, thought provoking. Love it. God bless from Glasgow Scotland
So beautiful and true
Not always true
Absolutely tremendous love the spikes on the arms and the extra realism, although I feel it was missing a couple of tiny bubbles for water movement. God bless from Glasgow Scotland. Im lucky to live directly across from one in Glasgow High Street.