Canada’s Playful Side (16 Photos)

October 23, 2026

By Vidar

Public art across Canada that makes people smile

Canada keeps a sense of humor in its public spaces, and you do not need a museum ticket to find it. These twelve works, from Vancouver to Halifax, sit in parks, plazas, crosswalks and waterfronts, and most of them are free to walk up to.

More: Canada Made Me Look Twice (12 Photos)

🐕 A Helping Paw — By Trevor Cole in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

Trevor Cole’s stencil shows a boy sitting with his head down. The dog was not part of the plan: Carlos stood on his hind legs and put a paw on the boy’s shoulder.

📷 Photo by Erika Lopez of her dog Carlos.

More: Kindness Is The Default (9 Photos)

🤫 “Les Chuchoteuses” — By Rose-Aimée Bélanger in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

Three bronze women share a bench on Placette Saint-Dizier, a small square off Rue Saint-Paul in Old Montreal, close enough to whisper. Nobody else gets to hear what is so interesting.

💡 Art Fact: Art Public Montréal dates the bronze to 2002 and says the artist’s inspiration “comes from the simple moment of every day life.”

📷 Photo: “Les chuchoteuses 01” by Jeangagnon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

🏜️ “Moving Dunes” — By NÓS Architectes and MU in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

For one summer, Avenue du Musée beside the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts became a pedestrian street painted as sand dunes, with mirrored spheres resting in the ripples. The dunes are flat paint.

💡 Art Fact: Art Public Montréal describes it as the seventh annual summer transformation of the street, created by NÓS Architectes and produced with MU.

More: When Artists Play With Nature (12 Photos)

🦝 “Hubert” — By The Half Decent in Toronto, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦

Toronto’s most famous neighbor, the raccoon, dressed for a night out. Hubert has the top hat and the bow tie, but the wide eyes say he has not decided about the outfit.

💡 Artist Fact: The Half Decent was born in Switzerland and moved to Canada at eleven.

More: “Hubert” by The Half Decent in Toronto, Canada

🔗 Follow The Half Decent on Instagram

🤿 “Girl in a Wetsuit” — By Elek Imredy in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

At first glance she could pass for a mermaid. Look again: she has legs, flippers and a diving mask pushed up on her forehead. On this day a real gull kept her company on the rock.

💡 Art Fact: She was unveiled on her rock off Stanley Park in 1972, and the model was Debra Harrington of Vancouver.

📷 Photo: “Girl in a Wetsuit (1)” by Guerinf / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

🐄 “The Pasture” — By Joe Fafard in Toronto, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦

In the middle of Toronto’s financial district, a small herd of bronze cows lies in the grass and chews nothing in particular, while the office towers of the Toronto-Dominion Centre rise behind them.

💡 Art Fact: Fafard, a Saskatchewan sculptor, made the seven bronze cows in 1985, each with its own patina.

📷 Photo: “Toronto, Canada” by Rick Ligthelm / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

🐦 “The Birds” — By Myfanwy MacLeod in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

One of two house sparrows, the most ordinary bird in the city, made giant in the plaza of the Olympic Village. “You’re the small thing in relationship to the giant birds,” MacLeod told The Globe and Mail.

💡 Art Fact: The city’s public art brochure says MacLeod cites Hitchcock’s movie as inspiration. The sparrows were removed in 2017 after damage from climbing and skateboarding, then recast in aluminum and returned in 2018, the Georgia Straight reported.

📷 Photo: “Olympic Village, Vancouver” by Guilhem Vellut / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

✨ “Spinning Chandelier” — By Rodney Graham in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

A palace-style chandelier hangs from the underside of the Granville Street Bridge at Beach Avenue, where nobody expects one. It was built to light up, lower and spin for four minutes at noon, 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

💡 Art Fact: The piece grew out of Graham’s earlier film installation Torqued Chandelier Release, and developer Westbank commissioned it as part of the Vancouver House project, Canadian Architect reported in 2019. The city’s public art head called it a work that “makes you stop and look at the underside of a bridge.”

📷 Photo: “Spinning Chandelier @ Vancouver House” by GoToVan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

🐟 “Fish Bone Crossing” — By Roadsworth in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

The stripes still tell drivers where to stop, but Roadsworth added a head and a tail, so everyone crossing walks over the bones of a very large fish.

💡 Artist Fact: Roadsworth is the Montreal artist Peter Gibson, and his street portfolio lists Fish Bone Crossing as a 2010 work.

More: Roadsworth: The Visionary Street Artist

🔗 Visit Roadsworth’s website

🌊 “The Wave” — By Donna Hiebert in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 🇨🇦

An engraved stone beside The Wave reads “For your protection, do not climb.” On a sunny day there is usually a child on top anyway, and another one sliding down.

💡 Art Fact: The Wave has stood on the Halifax waterfront since 1988, and the ground around it is spongy safety flooring.

📷 Photo: “The Wave in 2025” by A Disappearing Act / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

😂 “A-maze-ing Laughter” — By Yue Minjun in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

Fourteen bronze men laugh with their eyes shut and their mouths wide open in Morton Park near English Bay. It is hard to stand among them with a straight face.

💡 Art Fact: Every laughing figure is modeled on Yue Minjun himself, and the work stayed in Vancouver after the 2009–2011 Vancouver Biennale thanks to a donation from Chip and Shannon Wilson and family.

More: 25 Extraordinary Sculptures

🎩 “Man With Two Hats” — By Henk Visch in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦

A tall, thin bronze figure lifts a hat in each hand beside Dow’s Lake. It looks like a cheerful greeting, and it is one: a thank-you from the Netherlands.

💡 History Fact: The Netherlands gave the statue to Canada to thank Canadian soldiers for liberating the country in the Second World War, and an identical statue stands in Apeldoorn. It was unveiled in 2002.

📷 Photo: “Man with two hats by Wilder” by Lezumbalaberenjena / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

🐉 “Earth Dragon” — By Junko in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

A dragon built from salvaged wood and street-found scrap appears to stride across a snowy Montreal field. MURAL Festival describes Junko’s sculptures as creatures made to breathe in the spaces around them, and this wintry beast turns discarded material into an unexpected bit of folklore.

Photo/source: @kev_inthestreets, via the Street Art Utopia archive

🔗 Follow Junko on Instagram

🛻 “Lawn Gossip” — By Old Hues in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, Canada 🇨🇦

Three neighbors settle into lawn chairs beside a red pickup, a cooler, worn tires and a loose bicycle wheel. Old Hues titles the work “Lawn Gossip” and places it on the Shaunavon Fire Department at 60 3 Avenue.

Photo/source: Old Hues’s official post

🔗 Follow Old Hues on Instagram

🎨 “Graffiti Granny” — By ASHOP Crew at MURAL Festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

A towering grandmother in oversized glasses leans across the wall with a spray can, while doves, bubbles and a purple streetscape turn the scene into a neighborhood daydream. ASHOP Crew’s official exterior-mural gallery features the playful character, whose scale makes the mischievous gesture even funnier.

Photo/source: Kris Murray, via the Street Art Utopia archive

🔗 Follow ASHOP Crew on Instagram

🎼 Organ Pipes Meet a Rose Window — By Jason Wasserman in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

Organ pipes rise toward a circular pattern that shifts from stained-glass color to a starry night sky. In his finished-work post, Wasserman says he based the MURAL Festival piece on the architecture of Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica, combining its pipe organ with rose-window geometry. It stands at 4478 Rue De Bullion.

Photo/source: Jason Wasserman’s official post

🔗 Follow Jason Wasserman on Instagram