Not Really There (7 Photos)

Painted streets that are not really there

A record shop in Rotterdam, a town square in Spain and a river view in France are all flat paint on blank walls. Three of these seven walls come with a before photo, so you can see what the painters started with.

More: Art That Feels Real (12 Photos)

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🎩 “Metal Fingers” — By Taroe in Rotterdam, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Two men in pink and white suits walk past a record shop called Astorians, painted across the end wall of an apartment block. Taroe painted it entirely with brushes for ALL CAPS 2026 in Lombardijen, stitching fragments of cities he had photographed into one street that does not exist.

🔗 Follow Taroe on Instagram

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🏘️ A Town Square on a Parking Lot Wall — By Rober Bece in Santa Marta de Tormes, Spain 🇪🇸

The white parking lines run straight into a painted square with houses, balconies, shop signs and a fountain. The wall stands next to the town hall on Plaza de España, and the scene pays tribute to the town’s shops and bars, Salamanca Diario reported.

💡 Nerd Fact: The town council inaugurated the wall in late January 2025, according to Salamanca24Horas.

🔗 Follow Rober Bece on Instagram

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🏛️ “Fresque des Québécois” — By CitéCréation in Québec City, Canada 🇨🇦

The houses, shops, stairs and gateway are all painted on one flat gable at 29 Rue Notre-Dame. Québec City’s tourism office credits CitéCréation, with Hélène Fleury, Marie-Chantal Lachance and Pierre Laforest, and dates it to 1999.

💡 Spot Fact: About 15 historic figures and nearly a dozen Québec writers and artists are hidden in the scene, the same guide says, many of them looking out of the painted windows.

🔗 Visit CitéCréation’s website

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🌉 “Au fil de Loire” — By A-Fresco / Patrick Commecy in Brives-Charensac, France 🇫🇷

The top photo shows the plain gable. Below it, the wall opens onto the Loire, an old stone bridge and washerwomen at work. A-Fresco’s project page notes that washerwomen beat their laundry at the river here until the 1970s.

💡 Flood Fact: The mural includes a flood marker. The river’s record level in town was 6.80 meters on September 21, 1980, A-Fresco says.

More: Patrick Commecy’s Mural in Montpellier (9 Photos)

🔗 Visit A-Fresco’s website

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🎺 “Opowieść Śródecka z Trębaczem na Dachu i Kotem w Tle” — Concept by Radosław Barek in Poznań, Poland 🇵🇱

A bare tenement wall became an old Śródka street with rooftops, a butcher in his doorway, a trumpeter and a cat creeping along the roof. The City of Poznań says Prof. Radosław Barek drew the design and Fundacja PUENTA painted it; it was unveiled on October 1, 2015.

💡 History Fact: The rider with the white eagle on his shield is Władysław Odonic, the duke who granted Śródka town rights in 1231, according to the city.

More: A Masterpiece in Poznań’s Historic Śródka District

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🏢 3D Balcony — By Kartitect in Sirius, Russia 🇷🇺

The bottom photo shows the wall before; the curved balconies, their shadows and the blue ornament in the top photo are all paint. The Sirius festival announcement introduces Kartitect as Kali Baynazarov from Kazakhstan, who planned an illusion mixing Russian and Kazakh ornament.

More: Walls You Can Feel (9 Photos)

🔗 Follow Kartitect on Instagram

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🚢 “Phoenix” — By Gert Neuhaus in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪

The ship named Phoenix seems to crash out of an ornate old facade, but its bow, the windows and the cornices are all painted on a side wall. Neuhaus painted it in 1989 on the firewall at Wintersteinstraße 20 in Charlottenburg; Wandbilder Berlin calls it his best-known facade motif. It is typical of his work: the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district office describes him painting missing portals, windows, balconies and stucco onto blank walls.