Fixed It For You (8 Photos)

July 25, 2026

By Vidar

A broken corner can become a wall of books. A concrete blockhouse can become a camera. A brick wall can grin.

These eight works begin with something already there: a cable, a bollard, peeling paint, or the shape of a building. Instead of covering it, each artist makes it essential to the image.

🙂 Smiling House — By JanIsDeMan in Utrecht, Netherlands 🇳🇱

JanIsDeMan turned the brick façade at the corner of Esdoornstraat and Leliestraat into a face in 2020. Two large eyes combine with the wall’s weather marks and cracks to form the expression; even a small street fixture below gets a face of its own. A matching two-photo record from November 2020 confirms the artist and location, and JanIsDeMan has also shared the work on Instagram.

More: 8 Happy 3D Artworks by Jan Is De Man

💡 Nerd Fact: JanIsDeMan also has an ongoing project, The walls have eyes, built around small public-space interventions with 3D sticker eyes. He says the aim is to brighten the surroundings and make passers-by smile.

🔗 Follow JanIsDeMan on Instagram

📚 Intensification of Contrast — By Andrey Syaylev at Samara Public Library in Samara, Russia 🇷🇺

For the 2013 site-specific installation Intensification of contrast, Andrey Syaylev filled a damaged section of the library façade with books and cement, treating the books like bricks. The work stood at Samara Public Library, 95 Kuybysheva Street. The façade was subsequently restored, and the library reopened after a two-year restoration in 2016.

More: Street Art for Book Lovers (14 Photos)

💡 Nerd Fact: Syaylev conceived the installation as an inversion of his sculpture Complete Set of Works: the metaphor of a book as a brick became literal when books served as masonry. In his account of the project, he treats the façade’s later restoration as part of the work’s continuing public response.

📷 “Dans l’objectif” — By Blesea in the Dunes of Biville, France 🇫🇷

Blesea painted a child holding a camera across a concrete blockhouse in the Dunes of Biville, in La Hague on Normandy’s Cotentin peninsula. The blockhouse forms the camera body, while its central opening becomes the lens. The artist shared the work on August 26, 2025 under the caption Dans l’objectif… 2025.

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💡 Nerd Fact: Painting blockhouses is a recurring part of Blesea’s practice rather than a one-off intervention. Attitude Manche describes the Cotentin’s blockhouses as an ideal setting for his work and notes that their existing forms often determine the subjects he paints.

🔗 Follow Blesea on Instagram

🎩 Charlie Chaplin Bollard — By Oakoak in Mulhouse, France 🇫🇷

The rounded cap of the black bollard supplies Chaplin’s bowler hat. Oakoak adds the face and jacket details, turning the post into the Little Tramp. A photo record places the intervention in Mulhouse and credits Equis007; Galerie Orlinda says it invited Oakoak to install a series of small works in the city center.

More: Wrong but Right: Art by Oakoak (9 Photos)

💡 Nerd Fact: A route map produced by the City of Mulhouse with Galerie Orlinda catalogs 11 Oakoak interventions in the city center. The Chaplin bollard appears as stop four under the title Charlot.

🔗 Follow Oakoak on Instagram

🐕 Boy with Dog — By Golsa Golchini

Golsa Golchini aligns a child and leash with a corroded patch on the metal surface, letting the damage suggest the dog’s body.

More: Tiny Street Art by Golsa Golchini (10 Photos)

💡 Nerd Fact: During her studies at Milan’s Brera Academy from 2004 to 2010, Golchini worked across photography, decoration, impasto, sculpture, fresco and painting. She graduated from the Visual Arts department in 2010.

🔗 Follow Golsa Golchini on Instagram

⚡ Shocked Homer — By Oakoak

Oakoak positions Homer beside a wall-mounted utility box and looping cables, then adds blue shock lines so the existing hardware becomes part of the gag.

More: Clever Street Art by Oakoak (10 Photos)

💡 Nerd Fact: In a 2015 interview, Oakoak identified Matt Groening’s humor in The Simpsons and Futurama, Calvin and Hobbes, and video games from the 1980s and 1990s as major influences.

🔗 Follow Oakoak on Instagram

🦒 Hungry Giraffe — By JanIsDeMan in Utrecht, Netherlands 🇳🇱

JanIsDeMan painted Hungry giraffe in 2023 on the De Steenhouwer apartment building at the corner of Briljantlaan and Diamantweg, opposite Smaragdplein. Climbing plants were planted beside the adjoining wall so they could eventually reach the giraffe’s mouth. NOS reported that clematis replaced the original ivy in 2024, but the living-art plan remained.

More: 8 Happy 3D Artworks by Jan Is De Man

💡 Nerd Fact: The commission began with a request for a nature-related mural. Residents, housing association Woonin and the municipality of Utrecht were involved, and the giraffe was the proposal that received the strongest response.