You Know These Faces (10 Photos)

By Vidar
Djoels's grayscale Walter White portrait beside DavidL's blue Cookie Monster mural above a real sofa.

Familiar faces, unexpected places

Walter White keeps watch over a skatepark in Belgium, King Kong holds out a painted hand in New Rochelle, and in Boston a snowbank turned into Batman. These ten works pull characters from film, TV, comics and cartoons onto walls, pillars, street cabinets and abandoned rooms.


DavidL’s exaggerated blue Cookie Monster above a battered sofa in an abandoned building near Barcelona, surrounded by painted cookies.

🍪 Cookie Monster Moves In — By DavidL near Barcelona, Spain 🇪🇸

Cookie Monster appears to have claimed the sofa. DavidL stretches the blue character’s mouth into a toothy grin and scatters painted cookies around the room. The battered furniture is real.

Photo: DLozano.

More: Surreal Art by DavidL

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King Kong mural by Carlos Alberto GH in New Rochelle, New York, with a person posing in the gorilla’s painted hand beside a real bench.

🦍 King Kong — By Carlos Alberto GH in New Rochelle, New York, USA 🇺🇸

King Kong offers a much gentler greeting here than he usually does on screen. Carlos Alberto GH, a Mexican artist from Guadalajara known for 3D illusions, painted an enormous open hand low enough for a person to pose inside it. The mural is at 33 LeCount Place by New Roc City, one of nine murals unveiled in downtown New Rochelle in 2022 as part of the #NRNYmurals project curated by Street Art for Mankind.

More: King Kong by Carlos Alberto GH in New Rochelle

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DavidL’s giant version of Gary the snail from SpongeBob SquarePants, painted above a worn wooden staircase near Barcelona, Spain.

🐌 Gary Takes the Stairwell — By DavidL near Barcelona, Spain 🇪🇸

Gary has outgrown the pineapple. DavidL, a Barcelona artist whose work is also in the collection of STRAAT museum in Amsterdam, turns SpongeBob’s pet snail into a huge, heavy-lidded presence above a worn staircase. The curled shell and long eyestalks follow the corner, making the creature seem wedged into the old building.

Photo: DLozano.

🔗 Follow DavidL on Instagram


Zimer’s Marilyn Monroe mural in a flowing red dress across the side of The Ridge Hotel at 151 East Houston Street in Manhattan.

💃 Marilyn in Manhattan — By Zimer in New York City, USA 🇺🇸

Marilyn Monroe’s red dress spreads across the side of The Ridge Hotel at 151 East Houston Street. Zimer bends the fabric around the building’s architectural details.

💡 Nerd Fact: Zimer learned graffiti in Queens around 2000 and honed his craft at the 5Pointz aerosol museum, before earning an architecture degree from New York Institute of Technology.

🔗 Follow Zimer on Instagram


Djoels’s grayscale portrait of Walter White from Breaking Bad on a concrete pillar at Skatepark Luxaplast in Kortrijk, Belgium.

🧪 Walter White — By Djoels in Kortrijk, Belgium 🇧🇪

The glasses, the stare and the respirator resting on his forehead leave little doubt about who this is. Djoels painted Walter White from Breaking Bad on a concrete pillar at Skatepark Luxaplast, the covered skatepark under the R8 ring road in Marke, Kortrijk. The portrait fills the column from edge to edge.

💡 Artist Fact: Djoels, who grew up in Meulebeke in West Flanders, is also a tattoo artist, and in 2017 she won the first edition of the Dutch-Belgian version of Ink Master.

More: Life at Sea: Mural by Djoels in Basque Country (5 photos)

🔗 Follow Djoels on Instagram


Two overlapping Mickey Mouse figures with red shorts and yellow shoes, painted by Jerkface on a wall in Manhattan, New York.

🐭 Double Mickey Mouse — By Jerkface in Manhattan, New York, USA 🇺🇸

Two Mickeys share the same patch of Manhattan, on Mott Street near East Houston Street. Jerkface overlaps their faces, gloves and familiar red shorts until the figure seems to shift as you look at it. The yellow shoes still land firmly on the sidewalk. The wall was documented by New York Cliché in 2018.

More: Double Mickey Mouse in New York

🔗 Visit Jerkface’s website


An electrical cabinet in Strasbourg painted by Jak Umbdenstock as a grinning SpongeBob with gold teeth spelling HTP, a red tie and a spray can in his hand.

🧽 SpongeBob on a Cabinet — By Jak Umbdenstock in Strasbourg, France 🇫🇷

SpongeBob has found work as street furniture. Jak Umbdenstock turned an electrical cabinet in Strasbourg’s Hautepierre neighborhood into SpongeBob in June 2021, during the COLORS City HTP festival. The tall yellow box already had the right shape. This SpongeBob grins with gold teeth that spell HTP, a nod to Hautepierre, and holds a spray can of his own.

More: SpongeBob (HTP) SquarePants

🔗 Follow Jak Umbdenstock on Instagram


TRUST. iCON’s black-outline Snoopy crouching along a white wall in Ladbroke Grove, London, with a street lamp in front of him and a small poop emoji painted by his tail.

🐶 Snoopy in Ladbroke Grove — By TRUST. iCON in London, UK 🇬🇧

A few thick black lines are enough to make Snoopy recognizable from across the street. TRUST. iCON stretched the beagle along a whitewashed wall in Ladbroke Grove, crouched low with a real street lamp standing right in front of him. A small poop emoji by his tail shows exactly what he is doing.

More: Snoopy by TRUST. iCON in London

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JPS’s stencil of Cain, the robot villain from RoboCop 2, on a concrete wall beside a person, with both reflected in a pool of water.

🤖 Cain from RoboCop 2 — By JPS

A robot villain gets a surprisingly quiet setting. JPS’s detailed stencil of Cain from RoboCop 2 stands beside a pool of water, which repeats the machine in reflection.

💡 Film Fact: In RoboCop 2, Cain was a stop-motion puppet animated by Phil Tippett’s team, while its face on the monitor was a digitally puppeteered CG head, played back on a Sony Watchman built into the model.

More: Street Art by JPS

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George Li leaning on the Batman he sculpted from a snowbank on Beech Street in Boston’s Chinatown, with parked cars and a fire hydrant behind them.

🦇 Snow Batman — By George Li in Boston, USA 🇺🇸

After a March 2017 snowstorm, George Li turned a snowbank on Beech Street in Boston’s Chinatown into Batman, cape and pointed ears included. He told the Boston Globe it took about two and a half hours, using a shovel, his keys for the eyes and his son’s sand shovel for the details. He made it for his six-year-old son, whose favorite superhero is Batman.

More: 11 Amazing Snow and Ice Sculptures

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