Art That Needed a Tree (9 Photos)

Take the tree away and the idea is gone

Each of these works was built around a tree. Paint lines up with real branches, a paper canopy spreads from a painted trunk, and an old chestnut holds a neighborhood’s books.

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📚 De (B)ruilboom — By René Bruns in Ruurlo, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Ten glass-fronted cupboards sit in the hollows of an old sweet chestnut trunk, and anyone passing can take a book or leave one. Carpenter René Bruns made the book tree for the De Bruil neighborhood association, and it opened in September 2012 at the corner of Batsdijk and Vortsterkampweg.

💡 Tree Fact: Bruns puts the chestnut at 350 to 400 years old; a local baron donated the trunk.

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🎊 The Colorful Tree of Mitla — In San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Mexico 🇲🇽

The trunk stands in the middle of the courtyard at the Museo Ervin Frissell, and the rings of red, blue, yellow, green and purple paper spread out from it. Seen from below, the tree seems to have grown a festival canopy.

💡 Place-Name Fact: Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History gives the Nahuatl name Mictlan, the source of “Mitla,” as “place of the dead.”

More: The Colourful Tree of Mitla

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💧 The Legend of Giants — By Natalia Rak in Białystok, Poland 🇵🇱

The painted girl tips her watering can toward a real tree on the sidewalk below. Natalia Rak painted The Legend of Giants for the Folk on the Street festival in 2013.

💡 Address Fact: The mural is on Aleja Józefa Piłsudskiego in Białystok.

More: 10 Murals by Natalia Rak

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🤲 In Your Hands — By Adrien Martinetti in Ajaccio, France 🇫🇷

Two painted hands hold a heap of soil, and a real tree grows out of the top of the wall as if it were planted there. The man standing at the bottom shows how large the hands are.

More: In Your Hands by Adrien Martinetti

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✂️ Pruning — By SMOK in Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium 🇧🇪

From the right spot, the painted scissors close on the branches of the real tree in front of the wall. SMOK painted Pruning for Berchem’s Fake Views project at Turkooisstraat 16. Photo by Ferdinand Feys.

More: 10 Clever Murals by SMOK

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🫒 Give — By Lorenzo Quinn in Florence, Italy 🇮🇹

Two white hands rise out of the lawn and cup the base of a living olive tree, with the cathedral dome on the skyline. Give was unveiled in the Uffizi Gardens in 2020.

💡 Material Fact: The hands are made of resin and recycled materials, and the olive tree was chosen as a sign of peace.

🔗 Follow Lorenzo Quinn on Instagram

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🍂 Kora — By Bruno Althamer in Warsaw, Poland 🇵🇱

The chestnut in front of the wall is Kora’s hair: white blossom in spring, dense green in summer, gold in autumn, bare in winter. Bruno Althamer’s portrait of the Maanam singer was unveiled in 2019 at Nowy Świat 18/20.

💡 Campaign Fact: The mural was part of Wysokie Obcasy’s Women on Walls campaign, a year after Kora died in July 2018.

More: Four Seasons Tribute to Kora

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🌳 Browing — By Nuxuno Xän in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe 🇬🇵

The tree behind the panel gives the child a full green head of hair. Xän’s title Browing joins “boring” and “growing,” and the work was painted for LE MUR Guadeloupe in Les Abymes.

💡 Wall Fact: LE MUR Guadeloupe is a six-meter panel that gets a new invited artist each month, with four days to paint it. The tree stays; the portrait changes.

🔗 Follow Nuxuno Xän on Instagram

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👀 Googly Eye Tree — By Vanyu Krastev in Bulgaria 🇧🇬

The railing runs across the trunk just above a bulge in the bark, and two googly eyes do the rest. Krastev puts googly eyes on things he finds in Bulgaria’s streets.

More: The City Has Eyes (8 Photos)

🔗 Follow Vanyu Krastev on Instagram

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