The Ground Gave Way (14 Photos)
By Vidar
When the ground stops being solid
On snow, cobblestones and a fort courtyard, these fourteen 3D ground illusions make the surface seem to open into ice canyons, gorges, stairwells and pits. Each illusion lines up from one viewpoint, and a person at the edge is often what makes the drop believable.
🕯️ Cave Tightrope — By Nate Baranowski in Valkenburg, Netherlands 🇳🇱
A child seems to cross a rope above a deep cave shaft while two adults reach out from the edges. Baranowski painted the illusion inside MergelRijk, where the real cave walls continue into painted ledges and warm-lit passages. Everyone in the photo is on solid ground.
More: 3D Art by Nate Baranowski
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🚇 The Belgian Underground — By Kurt Wenner in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪
A London Underground entrance opens in the floor, under a Piccadilly Circus sign. A white rabbit, a girl in a pink dress and a crowd of small figures fill the steps, while a sign on the real wall reads “London now just around the corner”.
💡 Commission Fact: Wenner lists the piece in his image library as The Belgian Underground, made in Brussels for Eurostar.
More: “The Belgian Underground” by Kurt Wenner
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🧊 The Frozen Divide — By Joe and Max
A man stands on a ledge of painted ice while a red SUV waits on the opposite edge. The ice columns and the frozen waterfall are paint on snowy ground; the tipi and the pine trees behind them are real.
More: 3D Art by Joe and Max
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🥷 Ninjago Terracotta Army — By Leon Keer and Massina in Günzburg, Germany 🇩🇪
A pit opens in the paving, filled with rows of Lego Ninjago warriors in terracotta brown. The man with the broom at the edge looks like a worker who has just uncovered them.
💡 Revival Fact: Keer calls it a revival of the Lego Terracotta Army he painted with three other artists in Sarasota, Florida, in 2011.
More: Ninjago Lego Terracotta Army
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🐟 Goldfish Portal — By Nikolaj Arndt
A crack in an ordinary shopping street opens onto deep blue water, and a goldfish rises toward the surface. The man kneeling at the edge reaches out as if he could touch it.
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🎡 Ferris Wheel — By Julian Beever in Santiago, Chile 🇨🇱
A real bench becomes the top seat of a Ferris wheel, while painted benches descend into a fairground far below. Beever made the chalk illusion in Santiago’s Plaza de Armas in 2012. The two visitors at the top have the only seats that are actually there.
📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsWheel of FortunePlaza de ArmasChalk only (municipality)5 × 5 m (municipality)1According to Santiago's municipality, Beever drew the Ferris wheel with only coloured chalk for 3M's Día del Ingenio on 3 May 2012.Municipalidad de Santiago2Beever calls it the most difficult drawing he has ever attempted.Julian Beever20123 MaySantiago municipality reports the Día del Ingenio drawing20123 MaySoychile: Beever finishes his 3D painting201324 AugRetrospective names it Wheel of FortuneRead the full file →
More: Julian Beever in Chile
🔗 Visit Julian Beever’s pavement art gallery
🐍 The Blue Cave — By Nikolaj Arndt
A waterfall pours into a glowing blue cave, and a snake rises from the water with its jaws open. The man on the rock ledge above stands close enough to touch the falls.
More: 3D Art by Nikolaj Arndt
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🔥 Dies Irae — By Kurt Wenner in Mantua, Italy 🇮🇹
Figures tumble into a glowing pit cut through the cobblestones, above the words “Dies Irae”, Latin for “day of wrath”. A man leans over the rim while café tables carry on as normal behind him.
💡 Pope Fact: Wenner’s image library lists the piece as Dies Irae, made in Mantua. In 1991 he led 32 street painters in a 15-by-75-foot Last Judgment in the piazza of Grazie, near Mantua, which Pope John Paul II signed.
More: 3D Masterpieces on Street Art Utopia
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🦁 The Lion Sleigh — By Eduardo Relero
A woman lies on a sheepskin in a sleigh, holding the reins of two stone lions. Below them the floor gives way to rooftops, towers and streets seen from high above.
More: Street Art by Eduardo Relero
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🌉 The Broken Bridge — By Eduardo Relero
Two Red Cross volunteers kneel on a painted stone bridge while a cyclist rides off its broken end. Far below, smoke drifts past a lone pillar and an old viaduct.
💡 Client Fact: Relero is an Argentine artist who lives in Spain, and the French Red Cross is among the clients listed on his website.
More: Street Art by Eduardo Relero
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💊 The Pill — By Juandrés Vera in Chiang Mai, Thailand 🇹🇭
A giant mouth opens in the pavement, with a capsule behind it. The woman lying on the tongue, feet in the air, looks like the next thing to be swallowed.
💡 Artist Fact: Vera, a 3D artist from Mexico, painted it in Chiang Mai in 2012, as Middle East Masala reports.
More: 3D Street Art in Chiang Mai
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🧊 The Crevasse — By Edgar Müller in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland 🇮🇪
A blue ice chasm opens across the pier, leaving one person balanced on its far rim. Müller created The Crevasse for Dún Laoghaire’s Festival of World Cultures in 2008. The sea beside it is real; the drop is paint.
📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsThe CrevasseFestival of World CulturesAbout 250 m²Also called Ice Age1GIGAZINE reports that Müller painted it in five days with five assistants, covering about 250 square metres.GIGAZINE2Gulf News called it one of Müller’s most challenging 3D paintings; he said sunshine, rain and hailstorm alternated within hours.Gulf News200821 AugPainted for the 21–24 Aug festival (GIGAZINE)20092 MarMontagna.TV reports Ice Age in Dún Laoghaire200929 MarGIGAZINE: 250 m², five days, five assistants200916 JulDOGOnews names it The Crevasse20117 JanGulf News: one of Müller’s most challenging worksRead the full file →
More: 3D Masterpieces
🕳️ Mind Your Step — By Erik Johansson in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪
The black-and-white paving at Sergels torg appears to break into a rocky shaft. This one is a large printed image installed on the square in 2011, with its perspective aligned to a viewing platform. The people stepping onto the narrow triangle complete the illusion.
📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsMind Your StepPrinted photo illusion32 × 18 m (Chalmers blog)Sponsored by Microsoft1According to the Chalmers alumni blog, the bottomless abyss was really a 32×18 metre mat rolled out on the square.Chalmeristbloggen2An Italian report described it as a sheet printed with the “opened” paving, laid on the ground.Blitz Quotidiano20118 JunHolger.Ellgaard photographs the installation (Wikimedia Commons)20119 JunBlitz Quotidiano reports the illusion at Sergels torg201114 JunRemoved after 7–12 June, Chalmers blog reportsRead the full file →
More: Mind Your Step in Stockholm
🔗 Visit Erik Johansson’s project gallery
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🏰 Misfit — By Leon Keer at Château du Taureau, France 🇫🇷
A porcelain-like girl in a blue dress stands at the bottom of a shaft that seems to drop through the courtyard of the old sea fort in the Bay of Morlaix, begun around 1542 to keep raiders away from the town. The real stone walls continue straight down into the paint.
💡 Festival Fact: Keer painted it in July 2022 for the MX Arts Tour and ties it to the château’s past as a prison for aristocrats jailed by their own families.
📂 Artwork File · Sourced factsMisfitAnamorphic floor paintingChâteau du TaureauMX Arts Tour (artist)1According to Keer, most of the château's Ancien Régime prisoners were Breton aristocrats jailed at their own families' request to avoid dishonour.Leon Keer2Street-Heart's archive dates the work to July 2022 and lists it under Plouezoc'h.Street-Heart2022JulStreet-Heart dates the work July 2022 (entry updated 2 Aug)20224 NovBrooklyn Street Art screens Keer's Misfit filmRead the full file →
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🙏 Buddha Head in the Roots — Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya, Thailand 🇹🇭
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🎸 The Guitar Forest — Near Laboulaye, Argentina 🇦🇷
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🌳 The Cemetery Tree — Table Rock, Nebraska, USA 🇺🇸
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🍄 “Mushroom Path” — By Jon Foreman at Druidston Haven, Wales 🏴
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❄️ “Little Nis” — By Thomas Dambo in Bernheim Forest, Kentucky, USA 🇺🇸
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🌿 “Ven a la Luz” (“Come into the Light”) — By Daniel Popper in Tulum, Mexico 🇲🇽
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🐕 Doggie Stick Library
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🦔 Barnes Hedgehog Highway — Barnes, London, UK 🇬🇧
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🤝 “Nello & Patrasche” — By Batist Vermeulen in Antwerp, Belgium 🇧🇪
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🔱 “Neptuno del Puntón” — By Luis Arencibia in Telde, Gran Canaria, Spain 🇪🇸
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🐍 “Serpent d’océan” — By Huang Yong Ping in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France 🇫🇷
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🧳 A Traveler at Sunset — By Bruno Catalano in Viareggio, Italy 🇮🇹
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🏝️ Elliðaey — Westman Islands, Iceland 🇮🇸
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🐗 “Old Sow Between the Trees” — By Hannelie Coetzee at Wanås Konst, Sweden 🇸🇪
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🏹 Spirit of the Medieval Huntress — By Anna & The Willow at Skipton Castle Woods, England 🇬🇧
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👻 “The Black Ghost” — By Svajūnas Jurkus and Sergejus Plotnikovas in Klaipėda, Lithuania 🇱🇹
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🦈 “Tubarão no Depósito” (Shark in the Tank) — By Nuno Miles in Portugal 🇵🇹
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⛪ Katskhi Pillar — Imereti, Georgia 🇬🇪
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🦖 Over His Shoulder — By SCAF
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🏄 No Water Needed — By Nikolaj Arndt
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💡 A Bench for Two Lamps
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💀 Giant Skeleton Using a Phone — By Kitt Bennett in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺
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☕ Hanoi Train Street — Hanoi, Vietnam 🇻🇳
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⚔️ “Gallos” — By Rubin Eynon in Tintagel, England 🇬🇧
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It’s real or fake if it’s real that is dangerous and if it’s
👍🇳🇵
Wow
That is one dangerous looking ferris wheel, thank god it ain’t real, because if it was, that ferris wheel would be closed down for how unsafe it is
Ha, it would definitely fail any safety inspection! The wheel only “works” from one spot: Julian Beever uses a projection trick called anamorphosis, so the drawing looks 3D only from the correct angle and stretched out from anywhere else. Fun backstory too: he started out as a juggler and Punch and Judy street performer before realising he could travel with just a box of chalk, and his first big illusion was a swimming pool on a Brussels high street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Beever
Interesting, especially how there’s a couple who has the ability to fly
waw
Waw indeed, Anastasep! A fun twist on the last one, Mind Your Step in Stockholm: Erik Johansson isn’t a street painter at all but a Swedish photographer, born in 1985 near Götene, who studied computer engineering at Chalmers and taught himself retouching on the side. He’s now based in Prague and is best known for surreal “impossible photography” that looks real, and only now and then takes on street pranks or anamorphic installations like this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Johansson_(artist)
Amazing talent
It really is, Bob! Leon Keer, the Dutch artist behind the Ninjago warriors and Misfit in this post, often takes his illusions a step further by adding augmented reality and video mapping to the paintings. He also invented “Ego Leonard”, a supposedly anonymous guerrilla artist, as a kind of alter ego. Since pieces like these are temporary, the photos shared online are often the only way most of us ever get to see them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Keer
I love this 😻
Very clever. 👌👌👌👌
It really is clever, Susan! The man behind the London Underground piece at the top, Kurt Wenner, is the artist credited with turning traditional street painting into 3D pavement art. He was creating concept art for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before he quit in 1982, moved to Italy and started adding perspective to the old European street-painting tradition. His work has since been shown in more than 30 countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wenner
Wow! Good to know. This piece is beautiful
Oh no I’m so frightened for the baby 🫣🫣🫣🫣
Don’t worry, Susan, the little one is perfectly safe! In the cave tightrope photo, Nate Baranowski painted the shaft on the walls of the MergelRijk marl caves in Valkenburg, and the depth only works when you look through a camera lens from one fixed spot. MergelRijk says the idea was to continue a local tradition: people in the region have been making charcoal drawings on those cave walls for more than 300 years, and five international 3D artists were brought in to add the modern versions. https://mergelrijk.nl/en/3d-cave-paintings/
Can we please chat together 🥺 I’m new here I want to make friends around the world 🌎
Yea, l am from Ghana, a social worker, nice to make friends,
Scary 😧 but so good
So clever 👀👀👀👀
Well done absolutely amazing 🤩