Art Gone Wild

A building unzipping itself in Milan. A giant skeleton texting on a rooftop in Melbourne. A realistic horse rising from the sidewalk in Germany. In this selection of “Crazy Art,” you’ll find 10 creative interventions in urban and natural spaces—from warped architecture to hyperreal illusions and massive murals that transform entire neighborhoods. Included are works by Odeith, Kitt Bennett, Seth Globepainter, and more.

1. Jack-in-the-Box — Seth Globepainter’s mural in Aalborg, Denmark

A child­like fig­ure with crayons sits curled up on the side of a gable house, blend­ing inno­cence with melan­choly. Paint­ed by Seth Globe­painter, the mur­al uses the house’s shape as a fram­ing device, rein­forc­ing the box-like enclo­sure and emo­tion­al tone.

2. Before and After Wall — Arleta Kolasinska in Poznań, Poland

This build­ing under­went a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion with a mur­al of a fic­tion­al town­scape paint­ed direct­ly over the plain wall. The play­ful opti­cal illu­sion gives depth, lay­er­ing win­dows, rooftops, and char­ac­ters into a 3D-like vil­lage scene.

3. Golden Betta — Sébastien Wozniak and Nikita in Abbeville, France

This 3D illu­sion mur­al shows a gold­en bet­ta fish burst­ing through a wall, sur­round­ed by geo­met­ric cubes and shim­mer­ing orbs. The con­trast between real­is­tic shad­ing and sur­re­al forms adds depth and move­ment.

4. Shadow Figure — Sam3 in Madrid, Spain

Paint­ed in stark black, this tow­er­ing shad­ow fig­ure appears to pick up a passer­by in a park­ing lot. The min­i­mal­ist design plays with scale and fore­ground-back­ground inter­ac­tion

5. Skeleton Scroll — Kitt Bennett in Melbourne, Australia

This enor­mous skele­ton lounges across a rooftop, star­ing at a smart­phone. With Con­verse sneak­ers and casu­al pos­ture. Be sure to check out more pho­tos here!

6. The Wave Is Coming — Shozy in Balashikha, Russia

Shozy turns a tall build­ing facade into a warped illu­sion, where the cen­ter of the build­ing appears melt­ed and peeled inward. Win­dows and bal­conies twist in a dig­i­tal-like rip­ple.

7. Unzipped Building — Alex Chinneck in Milan, Italy

Archi­tec­tur­al illu­sion meets street art in this facade that appears to unzip itself. The curled cor­ner and mas­sive zip­per ele­ments give the illu­sion of fab­ric peel­ing back to reveal empti­ness.

8. 3D Horse — Nikolaj Arndt in Neustadt, Germany

A pho­to­re­al­is­tic horse emerges from a pud­dle paint­ed direct­ly onto the pave­ment. The illu­sion is height­ened by shad­ow­ing and per­spec­tive, mak­ing it seem like the ani­mal is half-sub­merged in water.

9. 3D Bowl Illusion — Odeith in Portugal

Paint­ed on a white wall, this blue porce­lain bowl with a spoon appears com­plete­ly three-dimen­sion­al, even cast­ing shad­ows. A bird drinks from the bowl while the artist inter­acts with it, merg­ing illu­sion with real­i­ty.

10. Smiley Forest — The Douglas Fir forest, Oregon, USA

This for­est design uses tree species and sea­son­al col­ors to form a giant smi­ley face, vis­i­ble only from above. The effect was cre­at­ed by plant­i­ng larch trees among Dou­glas firs.

From one of our fol­low­ers on Face­book: “I work for the com­pa­ny that plant­ed this. As the cap­tion says, this is cre­at­ed by west­ern larch trees (the yel­low) cre­ative­ly plant­ed in a stand of Dou­glas fir. Unlike most conifers that stay green year-round, larch turns yel­low in fall and los­es its nee­dles.”