They Painted 18 Stairways (8 Photos)

November 1, 2026

By Vidar

Repeating shapes can change a whole place.

Water, shadows, stone, brick, stairs, and tiles become something else when a pattern takes over. These eight works use repetition at every scale, from one face to an entire hillside.

🪜 Tejidos — By Xomatok in Alisos de Amauta, Lima, Peru 🇵🇪

Tejidos was part of Lima’s Pinta Lima project in 2021. Xomatok worked with local residents across more than 18 stairways, using repeated color bands to pull a bright line through the hillside.

💡 Culture Fact: The stair patterns borrow from llicllas, the handwoven Andean blankets whose geometric motifs Xomatok adapted for the project, reports My Modern Met. The painting was completed over about two months with help from community members.

More: 12 photos: The Most Beautiful Steps in Peru

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🧱 Brickwork Bench — Boulevard Shahed in Shiraz, Iran 🇮🇷

A brick bench bends around the tree line in a sequence of long S-curves. The repeated curve makes a sidewalk seat look like one long ribbon.

More: Street Art You Can’t Ignore When You Walk By

💥 Explosia — By Jon Foreman at Freshwater West, Wales, UK 🏴

A dense circle of beach stones breaks into smaller pieces toward the edge. The repeated change in scale makes the arrangement read like a burst frozen halfway through.

💡 Place Fact: Freshwater West in Pembrokeshire was used for beach scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and the film’s Shell Cottage, where Dobby dies, was built there, according to the National Trust. The cottage was later dismantled.

More: We are diving into the breathtaking world of Jon Foreman today (15 Photos)

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🌼 El Alamein Fountain — By Robert Woodward in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

Robert Woodward’s El Alamein Fountain opened in Fitzroy Gardens, Potts Point in 1961. Its 211 radial stalks turn hundreds of water outlets into one large dandelion-shaped sphere.

💡 History Fact: The fountain is a memorial to soldiers of the Australian 9th Division who fought at El Alamein in Egypt in 1942. Its design won the City of Sydney’s 1959 fountain competition and later took the inaugural RAIA NSW Civic Design Award in 1964, according to the NSW State Heritage Inventory.

📷 Photo by Angus Fraser / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

🌊 Stone Waves — By Jon Foreman 🪨

Hundreds of rounded stones move from dense rows into thin curling lines. Foreman uses repetition to make a still arrangement look as if it is flowing across the sand.

More: Stone By Stone (20 Photos)

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🔷 Capela das Almas — Tile Design by Eduardo Leite in Porto, Portugal 🇵🇹

Blue-and-white tile scenes wrap around the church’s street-facing walls on Rua de Santa Catarina. Viúva Lamego records the project in Porto as a 1929 design by Eduardo Leite.

More: The Chapel of Souls: A Masterpiece of 15,947 Blue Ceramic Tiles

✨ Tunnel of Surprises — Lima, Peru 🇵🇪

The Tunnel of Surprises sends glowing jets over a 35-meter walkway in Lima’s Magic Water Circuit at Parque de la Reserva. Repeated arches make a roof visitors can walk beneath.

📷 Photo by McKay Savage / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

🕸️ These Shadows — By Grint in Košice, Slovakia 🇸🇰

Košice-based artist Grint painted a close portrait and let the lace-like shadows do the second half of the work. Circles and small floral shapes run across the face, hand, and wall.

More: These shadows…

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