Good Thinking (8 Photos)

Street art that starts with what’s already there

Tom Bob turns a ventilation pipe into a telephone, JPS makes a broken bumper part of a tiny car crash, and Oakoak finds an elephant in a drooping duct. Add a drainpipe for Mario and Luigi and a silo transformed into a time machine: these eight works start with what is already there.

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💥 A Tiny Crash — By JPS

That broken bumper has an unlikely culprit. JPS paints a tiny red car right beside the damage on the back of a white van, with its nose pointing into the torn opening and his tag just behind it. The hole is real.

💡 Nerd Fact: JPS is Jamie Paul Scanlon, a stencil artist born in Weston-super-Mare, England, in 1977 and now based in Germany.

More: 40 Stunning Street Art By Creative Genius JPS

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🎮 A Drainpipe Level — By Pappas Pärlor in Sweden 🇸🇪

Mario and Luigi have found another pipe to explore. Pappas Pärlor sends the pixelated plumbers swimming along a blue stream that runs from the drainpipe onto the sidewalk.

💡 Nerd Fact: Pappas Pärlor is Johan Karlgren from Motala, Sweden. In an interview with Urban Nation, he explained that he started beading with his kids “in an attempt to break old gender roles.”

More: 90 Pixel Art Masterpieces: Pappas Pärlor’s Perler Bead Street Takeover

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🎹 Clem’s Sidewalk Show — By David Zinn

Clem has a keyboard, a few coins and an audience with very large feet. David Zinn draws the tiny performer right on the sidewalk, among the people watching. Zinn shared the scene on Facebook as “the emergence of Clem,” who “will not be playing any toe-tapping dance numbers.”

💡 Nerd Fact: The Ann Arbor, Michigan, artist makes his street drawings entirely from chalk, charcoal and found objects, and improvises each one on location.

More: They Look Alive (19 Photos of Art by David Zinn)

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☎️ “Call Me” — By Tom Bob in New York City, USA 🇺🇸

The bend in a ventilation pipe is the receiver. Its sloping concrete housing is the keypad. Tom Bob paints both red and adds a curling cord across the wall. DeMilked’s Tom Bob feature lists the piece as “Call Me” in New York City.

More: Creative Genius Tom Bob (33 Photos)

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⏳ Have a Nice Trip! 2041 — By Blesea in France 🇫🇷

The silo already had the legs and rounded body. Blesea adds yellow panels, a blue cockpit and a waving Trunks to turn it into the time machine from Dragon Ball. Even the tank’s seams become part of the painted vehicle. The artist titled this transformation Have a Nice Trip! 2041.

More: 14 Murals by Blesea

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🐘 Do Not Feed the Elephant — By Oakoak

A handwritten sign turns a drooping ventilation duct into an elephant’s trunk. Oakoak leaves the rest of the animal to your imagination. The artist shared this intervention on Instagram in 2018.

💡 Nerd Fact: Urban Nation describes Oakoak as a French street artist from Saint-Étienne who has used the urban outdoors as his playground since 2006.

More: Lovely by Oakoak (10 Photos)

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🪜 “Platforms” — By Aakash Nihalani

Black outlines cross a concrete wall and the ground below, appearing to form a stack of floating platforms that get smaller toward the top. A person jumps between them. The solid-looking boxes are only strips of tape on flat surfaces.

💡 Nerd Fact: Nihalani lists Platforms in his outdoor archive as a work made with tape.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsPlatformsAakash Nihalani · 2013 · Parrish Art Museum, Water MillBlack tape, wall and groundMade for Midsummer party1Designboom described it as “an installation of four ‘stepping stones’ receding into the building”.designboom2Dan’s Papers, without naming it, describes black-tape boxes on the northern wall that shrink as they climb, “creating the illusion of depth”.Dan’s Papers201313 JulMidsummer Gala201322 JulDan’s Papers: on view201323 Juldesignboom201411 MarAn Optical IllusionRead the full file →

More: Street Art by Aakash Nihalani

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🧱 A Colorful Patch — From Jan Vormann’s Dispatchwork Project

Small, brightly colored bricks fill a gap in a weathered stone wall, right next to a sticker-covered pole. Their tidy rows make the missing section stand out against the rough stone.

💡 Nerd Fact: Jan Vormann began Dispatchwork in 2007. Since then, the project of filling holes in broken walls with plastic construction bricks has grown into a worldwide network of participants.

More: What If LEGO Could Repair the World? (12 Photos)

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