Animals Took Over (10 Photos)

October 4, 2026

By Vidar

When animals become part of the architecture

A snake squeezes a parked bus in France, and a porcupine swallows the walls of a cabin in Canada. In these ten murals, the animals are as big as the buildings they’re painted on.

Giant Cat — LexusOne in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

The whole gable becomes the cat’s face, framed by the building’s brick corners. A real tree runs straight up between its green eyes, and an old car parked below shows the scale. LexusOne signed the work down the right-hand edge.

Art: LexusOne · Source

Snake Bus — SWEO and Nikita 5.7crew in Larnas, France

A parked bus becomes both canvas and prey in this anamorphic snake at MAD MAZE, an activity park in Larnas in the Ardèche.

Art: SWEO and Nikita 5.7crew · MAD MAZE · Source

A Giant Cat Gets Comfortable — Woskerski in Southend-on-Sea, UK

An orange tabby sprawls across giant stone letters spelling out the city’s name, its legs hanging over the edges. The wall, at 18 Western Esplanade, was painted for Southend City Jam 2026 and is logged on Street Art Cities.

💡 Festival Fact: Southend City Jam is a free three-day festival run by Southend-on-Sea City Council with local artists Steve Hart and Karl Sims, and brings more than 100 artists to the city center and seafront. Its roots go back to the town’s graffiti scene of the 1980s.

Art: Woskerski · Artwork · Source

Collective Mind — Shozy in Neftekamsk, Russia

Bees crawl up the side of a tall apartment block, where two painted flaps seem to peel the facade open to show golden honeycomb inside. Each bee is about as large as a window, set among the real balconies.

💡 Culture Fact: The festival curators, Art-embassy Supernova, describe bees as an image of Bashkir culture and of collective labor. The wall on Lenin Street was painted for Iskra Urban Fest, organized by the Republic of Bashkortostan’s culture and public utilities ministries together with the city of Neftekamsk.

Art: Shozy · Iskra Urban Fest 2020 · Source

Zero Sum — Jack Lack in Southend-on-Sea, UK

Two enormous gulls turn a familiar seaside fight over chips into a full-wall scene. Jack Lack’s mural covers a gable at 1 Nelson Mews.

Art: Jack Lack · Photo: The Reves One · Southend City Jam · Source

A Seal and Orcas Swim Across Two Buildings — JanIsDeMan in Klaksvík, Faroe Islands

A seal looks out from the gable of one building while orcas glide along the larger wall behind it. Painted in the same turquoise, the two walls read as one stretch of water, with the green hills of Klaksvík rising above the rooftops.

Art: JanIsDeMan · Local project · Source

A Child Faces a Giant Bird — Dan23 in Truchtersheim, France

A small painted girl stands before a kingfisher that fills the wall, with a ladybug, bee, butterfly, frog and fish around them. The painted line “La Beauté naît de la Biodiversité dans le jardin de l’amitié” (beauty is born from biodiversity in the garden of friendship) echoes the name of Truchtersheim’s elementary school, Le Jardin de l’Amitié. The wall is signed and dated 2026.

Art: Dan23 · Artwork · Source

A Giant Fish Swims Through Dover — Squirl-art in Dover, UK

The fish covers the whole side of the building in sharp teal and black shapes. Its body is packed with pink, red and green hills, trees and a small house, and a few small dark fish swim along the bottom edge.

Art: Squirl-art · Artwork · Source

A North American Porcupine Takes Over the Cabin — Nick Sweetman in Lac-Édouard, Canada

The cabin’s wooden siding disappears into a porcupine whose glowing quills spread almost from wall to wall. Its orange eyes stare straight out, and small silhouettes of spruce trees and a water tower sit low on either side.

💡 Artist Fact: Toronto-based Nick Sweetman holds a master’s degree in fine art from OCAD and is best known for murals of pollinators. Since 2017 he has organized butterfly mural projects in Toronto’s parks with the city and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Art: Nick Sweetman · Source

Two Bramblings Cover the Tower — Sagie in Gothenburg, Sweden

The birds perch across a residential tower at Siriusgatan 120 in Bergsjön, with windows and balconies breaking through the painted branches. The housing company Familjebostäder announced the work in August 2026; the Swedish name for the species, bergfink, nods to the neighborhood.

Art: Sagie · Source