The Scale Is Off (10 Photos)

October 25, 2026

By Vidar

When familiar things become impossibly big

A hillside becomes a face, a child unzips a tower, and one skeleton takes over an entire lot. These ten works change the size of familiar things until streets and buildings feel slightly wrong.

Cover credits: photos by Marek Śliwecki and Guy Delsaut; proportional crops in a side-by-side arrangement. Arrangement licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

👁️ “Finding Hope” — By JR in Paris, France 🇫🇷

JR pasted this anamorphic image onto a quiet street in Paris’s 19th arrondissement in April 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Seen from the right spot, the paper strips resolve into a giant figure peering out through window blinds that double as crosswalk stripes, while a lone pedestrian supplies the scale. The work became the cover of TIME’s Finding Hope issue, the April 2020 special edition of the TIME 100.

More: TIME: Finding Hope · Street Art About Hope

💧 “The Giant” — By André Heller in Wattens, Austria 🇦🇹

André Heller’s Giant is a monumental face built into the hillside at Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Wattens, Tyrol. A waterfall pours from its mouth, and the visitors at the pool look very small next to it.

💡 History Fact: Crystal Worlds opened in 1995, when Swarovski’s founding family commissioned Heller to mark the company’s 100th anniversary. According to Austria’s national tourist board, he based the Chambers of Wonder behind the Giant on the Chamber of Art and Wonders at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck, now considered the world’s first museum.

📷 Photo: Marek Śliwecki. License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

More: Just Add Water

🧵 “Unzip” — By Seth Globepainter in Le Mans, France 🇫🇷

A painted child pulls a zipper down the full height of a tower, opening the gray facade onto a bright rainbow field. The child is small against the building, and the zipper makes the plain facade look like a thin skin with another world underneath. The artist dates the mural to May 2024.

💡 Artist Fact: Seth is the alias of Julien Malland, born in Paris in 1972 and a graduate of the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. According to ST-ART Gallery, he set off around the world in 2003 to work with artists from other cultures, which led to the 2007 book Globe Painter, and he took part in the Canal+ documentary series Les Nouveaux Explorateurs, which explored countries through their urban art.

More: Seth’s official project page · When Walls Open Up

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🐦 “Bird Hole” — By Sergio Odeith

Sergio Odeith’s forced-perspective bird seems to push out of a weathered wall toward a seated person, whose hand shows the scale. The beak, feet, and painted shadow lines make a flat corner look like a deep hole.

💡 Artist Fact: Odeith was born in Damaia, Portugal, in 1976 and first worked in a shaded style he called “sombre 3D” before his anamorphic pieces drew international attention around 2005. According to his Upfest artist profile, he also ran a tattoo studio from 1999 until 2008, when he moved to London.

More: Odeith’s Bird Hole video · Official biography · When Nature Becomes Art

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🦌 “Shika” — By Jack Lack in Konohana, Osaka, Japan 🇯🇵

Jack Lack’s luminous deer stretches across a building in Konohana, with windows cutting through its fur and antlers. A person crouching at street level shows how much of the building the deer covers. “Shika” was produced for Mural Town Konohana by WALL SHARE in Osaka.

More: WALL SHARE’s official project page · When Nature Takes Over

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☔ “Rain” — By Jean-Michel Folon in Lausanne, Switzerland 🇨🇭

Jean-Michel Folon’s bronze figure stands beneath an umbrella formed entirely by water in front of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The museum’s collection record lists the fountain sculpture as “Rain,” a man under a waterfall umbrella, about 2.1 meters tall. The man is roughly human-sized. The umbrella is the part that is out of proportion: a full circle of falling water around him.

📷 Photo: Guy Delsaut. License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

More: Fondation Folon

🍇 Grape Harvest Mural — By TMF Studio in Gurjaani, Georgia 🇬🇪

Two enormous hands seem to reach through the building while its real windows sit between fingers and clusters of grapes. TMF Studio painted the mural in Gurjaani, in Georgia’s Kakheti wine region, during the 2025 edition of Tbilisi Mural Fest; a festival recap describes it as a tribute to domestic winemaking passed down through generations.

More: Street Art About Food · Georgia Travel: Gurjaani Wine Festival

🦈 “Tubarão no Depósito” (Shark in the Tank) — By Nuno Miles in Guarda, Portugal 🇵🇹

Nuno Miles painted a long rusted tank as an underwater capsule with blue-lit windows and a shark swimming inside. The artist shows the same before-and-after pair on his official website, where the piece is titled “Tubarão no Depósito.” The photo shows the rusted tank above and the finished piece below; a person sitting at one end of the painted tank shows its size.

More: Nature Become Art

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💀 Giant Skeleton Using a Phone — By Kitt Bennett in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺

Seen from above, Kitt Bennett’s skeleton sprawls across an open lot, looking at its phone. The cars parked nearby show how big it is.

More: ABC: Kitt Bennett’s underfoot murals · Street Art That Makes You Feel Tiny

🧸 Sleeping Child Mural — By Chemis in Plzeň, Czech Republic 🇨🇿

Chemis’s sleeping child stretches across an apartment block, and the real windows become part of the bedroom. With the teddy bear, the alarm clock and the peeling wall around it, the child looks huge. He painted it in June 2022 for WALLZ 2022, the Plzeň street art festival run by DEPO2015, on a much-discussed squatted house on Jateční Street. Expats.cz lists the work as untitled.

More: Mural by Chemis in Plzeň

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