Your Favorites (9 Photos)

A tree full of people. A creature made of paint.

These nine reader favorites bring together sculpture, street art and painted illusions.

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⛰️ “Lo de pueblo” — By Sake ink in Huéneja, Spain 🇪🇸

Sake ink painted “Lo de pueblo” for the third Huéneja Urban Art Festival. A woman and three small birds fill the warm-toned façade, with a tree, hills and sky visible beyond it. Street Art Cities records the mural at 6 Avenida Río Izfalada.

🔗 Follow Sake ink on Instagram

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👥 “Tree of Life” — By Kofi Sale in Aburi, Ghana 🇬🇭

A crowd of human figures fills the trunk and branches of Kofi Sale’s Tree of Life at Aburi Botanical Gardens. The bodies overlap and climb through the wood. The visitor beside the trunk shows how large the sculpture is.

💡 Nerd Fact: Before Aburi became a botanical garden, the site housed a sanatorium built in 1875 for recovering colonial government officials. The gardens opened in March 1890, with Kew-trained William Crowther as their first curator.

More: Tree of Life in Aburi Botanical Gardens

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🪴 “Abuelo y Niño” — By José Manuel Belmonte in Córdoba, Spain 🇪🇸

In Plaza de Manuel Garrido Moreno, a bronze grandfather passes a flowerpot up to his grandson on a ladder. José Manuel Belmonte’s life-size sculpture group is the second of three tributes to Córdoba’s patio caretakers, showing the tradition passing from one generation to the next.

💡 Nerd Fact: Córdoba’s courtyard festival joined UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2012. The recognition covers a communal tradition: residents welcome visitors into their patios and share music, dancing, food and drink during the May celebrations.

More: The Grandfather and the Child

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🚶 “Anonymous Pedestrians” — By Jerzy Kalina in Wrocław, Poland 🇵🇱

At the junction of Świdnicka and Piłsudskiego streets, fourteen bronze figures appear to descend beneath the pavement and emerge on the other side of the street. They carry everyday objects, including a suitcase, shopping bags, a tire and an umbrella.

💡 Nerd Fact: Kalina’s original “Przejście” (“Passage”) appeared in Warsaw in December 1977, four years before martial law was declared in Poland. According to the National Museum in Wrocław, those figures were made from fabric stiffened with plaster. The bronze version was installed in Wrocław in 2005, on the anniversary of the declaration of martial law.

More: Anonymous Pedestrians

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🪜 HOPE — By The Martherapy in Montreal, Canada 🇨🇦

The Martherapy extends the letter H in “HOPE” into a ladder for a painted girl to climb. The black-and-white work fits inside a bricked-up doorway in Montreal.

🔗 Follow The Martherapy on Instagram

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🌿 “Planté là” — By Levalet in Paris, France 🇫🇷

A figure in a green hoodie balances on one hand at 2 Rue Levert, in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. The paste-up includes a tree-shaped shadow beneath real foliage. Levalet shared “Planté là” in December 2023.

💡 Nerd Fact: Levalet also created “Odyssée,” a street comic loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey. Begun in December 2019, the three-year project appeared as paper installations in Paris, Reims, Marseille and London before being collected in a book published in May 2023.

More: “Planté là” by Levalet in Paris

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🦎 Fire Salamander — By Odeith

A yellow-and-black fire salamander seems to occupy the empty room. Odeith paints its body, white highlights and shadow across adjoining surfaces. They line up from one viewpoint, making the animal appear solid.

💡 Nerd Fact: Ancient accounts claimed that fire salamanders were born in flames. San Diego Zoo suggests that the belief may have arisen when salamanders sheltering under logs escaped as the wood was put on a fire.

More: 3D Art by Odeith

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🕊️ “PɇaceMaker” — By GOIN in Geneva, Switzerland 🇨🇭

A girl kneels beside a fallen dove, pressing on its chest as if trying to revive it. GOIN painted “PɇaceMaker” in 2022 at Maison de la Paix in Geneva.

More: PɇaceMaker at House of Peace in Geneva

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🌀 Dismas Hub Mural — By Nate Baranowski in South Bend, Indiana, USA 🇺🇸

Nate Baranowski painted a maze of stairways, rooms and intersecting viewpoints on the Dismas Hub’s west wall at 402 E. South Street. Developed with Dismas House residents, staff and Notre Dame students, the mural portrays 27 people from the wider community, each of whom contributed to its creation. The scenes explore the joys and challenges of rebuilding lives after incarceration.

💡 Nerd Fact: Dismas House of Indiana developed from Father Jack Hickey’s idea of a shared home for people leaving prison and college students. The organization describes its program as non-religious.

More: 3D Chalk Art by Nate Baranowski

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Which one is your favorite?