Art About the Weight We Carry (19 Photos)

October 17, 2026

By Vidar

What we carry, and the hands that help carry it

Giant hands hold up a building in Venice, a figure in Fanzara carries a load of responsibilities, and a man in Venlo sits in an armchair while his blues add up. These 19 murals, sculptures and stencils give grief, loneliness and worry a shape, along with the hugs and helping hands around them.

More: Helping Hands (8 Photos)

🪨 “Cairn” — By Celeste Roberge in Reno, Nevada, USA 🇺🇸

A crouching steel figure packed with river rock bends over its knees outside the Nevada Museum of Art. Online it often circulates as “The Weight of Grief,” but it is “Cairn” from 1998, filled with stones from the Truckee River.

💡 Nerd Fact: Roberge shapes the steel grid of these figures roughly on her own body and fills each one with rock from where it stands, according to the Reno river arts guide.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsCairnCeleste Roberge · 1998 · Nevada Museum of Art, RenoSteel and river rockBy the museum entranceVolunteers in Art (museum)1The Nevada Museum of Art lists the work as “Cairn” by Celeste Roberge, dated 1998, steel and river rock, object 1999.20.01.Nevada Museum of Art2According to Online Nevada, it was moved to its guardian’s position by the museum door when the new building opened in 2003.Online Nevada1998Museum record date200420 DecMuseum photo20051 SepOnline Nevada photo20137 FebOur photo on My Modern Met201822 NovTAI Modern: front entrance202120 AugRiverwalk District photoRead the full file →

😊 “Be Someone That Makes You Happy” — Bristol, UK 🇬🇧

A small stenciled child holding a teddy bear crosses out “with” and underlines “you,” so the wall now reads “Be someone that makes you happy.” A few red strokes change the whole sentence.

🎭 “People Don’t Pretend to Be Depressed” — By The Dotmaster

A stenciled kid in checkered trousers reaches up under a line written straight across the wall: people don’t pretend to be depressed, they pretend to be happy. The Dotmaster is Leon Seesix, who started out in Brighton’s 1990s street art scene.

💡 Nerd Fact: Seesix was a founding member of c6.org, a collective that mixed street art and performance in the late 1990s and 2000s.

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🤝 A Hand Up — By Exit Enter

On a building corner above a stone step, one stick figure leans down and hauls a smaller one up by the arm. Exit Enter uses the figure as his signature and as a character for telling stories to passersby.

💡 Nerd Fact: Exit Enter was born in 1990, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and started painting on the street in 2013.

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🤝 “Support” — By Lorenzo Quinn in Venice, Italy 🇮🇹

Two white hands rose out of the Grand Canal and braced the wall of the Ca’ Sagredo Hotel during the 2017 Venice Biennale, as a warning about rising water. Quinn modeled them on his son’s hands.

💡 Nerd Fact: The hands look like stone, but W Magazine describes them as resin-coated polyurethane foam, anchored through two meters of water, eight meters of mud and two meters of sand.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsSupportLorenzo Quinn · 2017 · Venice, Italy2017 Venice BiennaleModelled on his son’s hands27 ft tall (Axios)1Quinn said Venice needs the support of our generation and future ones, because climate change and time decay threaten it.Creative Boom2According to Finestre sull’Arte, the heritage authority set dismantling for 30 April 2018, after several extensions past the Biennale’s close.Finestre sull’Arte201714 MayNew work · Finestre sull’Arte201713 AugPhoto on Commons201710 OctPhoto on Commons201820 AprDismantling due · Finestre201830 AprOut by 7 May · Finestre201830 JunSpot taken · FinestreRead the full file →

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🗿 True Nature — By Daniel Popper in Cancún, Mexico 🇲🇽

A 16-foot figure holds its own face away from its head, and the open shell behind it is full of greenery. Popper made it with Grupo Rosanegra for Bohemian Square in Cancún in 2023.

💡 Nerd Fact: It is built from a steel subframe and glass fiber reinforced concrete, and Popper’s studio calls it a reinvention of one of his earlier works.

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⚖️ Finding a Good Balance — By Sasha Korban in Tbilisi, Georgia 🇬🇪

A woman in a blue dress stands barefoot on a heap of tilting chairs that spills down the facade. Korban wrote that the chairs stand for the world’s chaos and the girl for inner harmony; the project was organized by the human rights group Truth Hounds.

💡 Nerd Fact: Korban worked as a miner at the Komsomolets Donbasu mine from 2006 to 2011.

More: Murals by Sasha Korban (16 Photos)

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🐻 Bear Hug

A mountain biker lies back in the arms of a giant bear statue, bike parked at its feet and a smaller bear standing by. Not every statue gets used this well.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsThree BearsIn place by 2017 · Ayusai Gorge, Almaty, KazakhstanWooden sculpture groupThree bear figuresIn place by 20171Guides to the Ayusai waterfalls start at the bears; x-travels.ru begins its route “from the now famous sculpture of three bears”.x-travels.ru2OpenStreetMap first mapped the point on 28 April 2017 as “Медвежонок” (Bear cub), later renaming it “Три Медведя” (Three Bears).OpenStreetMap201728 AprAdded to OpenStreetMap2017Junx-travels.ru photo20186 NovMK: “Three Bears” spot202022 MarWelcome.kz20221 FebZabugorshiki guide202329 JulWelcome.kz (English)20259 JulLast OSM edit202626 JanWildTicket Asia202628 JulZabugorshiki, updatedRead the full file →

More: Playing With Statues (26 Photos)

🖍️ A Girl Drawing Beside the Rubble — By Ramón P. Sendra

A girl bent over her drawing fills the end of a wall, while the house next door lies in a heap of broken brick behind warning tape. The tag in the corner reads “SENDRA 2010.”

More: Mural by Ramón P. Sendra in Pamplona, Spain

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🚪 Hallow — By Daniel Popper in Lisle, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸

A 26-foot woman pulls her chest open like a coat among the spring blossoms at The Morton Arboretum. Popper’s exhibition text ties the open chest to grief: a wound, but also acceptance rather than despair.

💡 Nerd Fact: “Hallow” has since moved to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsHallowDaniel Popper · 2021 · Lisle, Illinois, USA26 feet tallMade for Human+NatureShown in Lisle 2021–20231At 26 feet it was the tallest of five sculptures that opened The Morton Arboretum’s Human+Nature exhibition on 28 May 2021.Daily Herald2In December 2022 the Arboretum said Human+Nature would close at the end of February 2023, some sculptures on view into March.The Morton Arboretum202120 MayArboretum announces Hallow202127 MayArboretum photo, Lisle202128 MayOpening · Daily Herald202215 DecClosing announced202326 MayHuman+Nature concluded · Arboretum202431 JulMontgomery Hallow · Artist’s post202416 AugMontgomery Hallow · CSMonitor202522 JanMontgomery Hallow · My Modern Met202518 SepMontgomery Hallow · Legacy SitesRead the full file →

More: 5 Photos of Sculpture “Hallow” By Daniel Popper

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🕯️ An Old Man and a Charred Falla Figure — By Danklabara in Valencia, Spain 🇪🇸

Smoke still rises from the small clown-faced figure in the old man’s hands, and a tear runs down his cheek while the rest of the falla goes up in flames behind him. The Almería-born artist painted it in Valencia’s Monteolivete neighborhood for the Liga Nacional de Graffiti.

💡 Nerd Fact: Each year Valencia’s Fallas spares one figure from the bonfire, the “ninot indultat,” chosen by public vote. UNESCO inscribed the festival as intangible cultural heritage in 2016.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsAn Old Man and a Charred Falla FigureDanklabara · 2026 · Plaza Vicente Alcober Coloma, ValenciaLiga Nacional de GraffitiShared 3rd placeRealist from Almería1Street Art Cities lists the mural by Danklabara in the plaza Vicente Alcober Coloma, with a photo added on 4 October 2026.Street Art Cities2ESdiario described it as “a man with a puppet and a tear” and reported that it shared third place with Konestilo.ESdiario20262 OctLine-up announced · València city20264 OctStreet Art Cities photo20264 OctThird place · ESdiario photo202615 OctResults · league siteRead the full file →

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🧢 A Boy Hugging His Knees — By vinalay_bp in Guadalupe, Mexico 🇲🇽

On a plain white wall, a boy sits folded into himself, arms locked around his knees and face turned away from the street, while loose bursts of orange, blue, pink and teal spread out around him. Find it at Magnolia 3801 in Guadalupe, Nuevo León.

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💧 Tears and a Woven Shawl — By Dany Art in Santa María de Jesús, Guatemala 🇬🇹

Tears run down the cheeks of a woman pulling a red embroidered shawl tight around her head, on a yellow wall in Santa María de Jesús Sacatepéquez. It is Dany Art’s part of “El Camino de la Virgen,” for which artists painted 20 portraits of the Virgin Mary between September 4 and 12, 2026, each meant to meet the eyes of people walking by.

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💭 A Warning About Unspoken Thoughts — By Chiara Loca in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹

Real vine leaves hang over the top of this grayscale portrait, and thin painted lines and circles cut across the face. The words on either side read “Butta fuori i tuoi pensieri / O finiranno per ucciderti”: let your thoughts out, or they will end up killing you. In her post about the wall, Chiara Loca explains that she repainted an older mural here and kept its words because they still feel relevant.

More: Street Art for Overthinkers (12 Artworks)

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🫂 “Sopravvivimi” — By LIGAMA in Linguaglossa, Italy 🇮🇹

Knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them, a young woman sits alone on a large, almost empty gray wall, and the empty space makes her look even smaller. “Sopravvivimi” translates as “Survive me.” LIGAMA painted it together with the Fondazione Federico II and the Comune di Linguaglossa.

💡 Artist Fact: LIGAMA, who is from Sicily, left his post at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania in 2015 to paint full-time.

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🎒 “Carga de conciencia” — By Soen Bravo in Fanzara, Spain 🇪🇸

Seen in a tight close-up, a bare arm and torso strain under an enormous crumpled bundle that covers half the house. A flower, a toy horse, a toy soldier and a pacifier ride on the load or float off across the pale purple wall. The title translates as “Burden of conscience.” Soen Bravo painted it for MIAU Fanzara 2026, and he has said the load stands for the responsibilities people carry, physically and mentally.

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🐇 “TU PIÙ DI TUTTI” — By Tony Gallo in Santa Sofia d’Epiro, Italy 🇮🇹

On a house painted deep blue, a woman in a rabbit-ear hat stands quietly with her dog under a pink sun. The scene looks gentle, but according to local coverage it is about loneliness people keep to themselves, and it treats asking for help as a sign of strength. Tony Gallo painted it on Piazza Sant’Atanasio for the sixth edition of Ylberi, curated by Gulìa Urbana.

📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsTu più di tuttiTony Gallo · 2026 · Santa Sofia d’Epiro, ItalyYlberi festival, 6th editionCurated by Gulìa UrbanaArtist from Padua1According to Meraviglie di Calabria, the mural carries a message about hidden loneliness: asking for help is not weakness.Meraviglie di Calabria2In a video quoted by DIRE, Gallo said an animal’s company helps you carry on and keeps you from feeling alone.DIRE202629 JulWork in progress · Gulìa Urbana202631 JulIn progress · DIRE20263 AugArtist’s photo, finished wall20264 AugReport · Meraviglie di CalabriaRead the full file →

More: No One Should Face the World Alone (19 Photos)

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🐦 “When The Blues Start To Add Up” — By Krimsone in Venlo, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Leaning forward in a red armchair with his hands locked between his knees, a man in a cap sits with a blue bird on each side, under a glowing lamp and purple wallpaper that climbs the whole facade. Krimsone took the title from the satin bowerbird, which hoards blue objects: people gather their own “blue passings” the same way, and if they hold on to them, the blues start to add up. Graffiti artist Vincent Huibers supported the painting of this wall at Klokkengietersstraat 108.

💡 Nerd Fact: The wall was painted during suicide prevention week in the Netherlands.

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🤍 An Embrace With Pale Tulips — By Doppel in Southend-on-Sea, UK 🇬🇧

Pale tulips grow up through the arms. It was painted for Southend City Jam at the Victoria Station Interchange, next to bus stop VL. Photo by Rian Nijssen.

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