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40 of the Most Loved Photos on Street Art Utopia Right Now
## Street art, sculptures and land art, sorted by reader Loves
Every photo on Street Art Utopia has a Love button. These 40 are among the photos readers have Loved the most, listed in order of Loves. To keep the mix varied, we took no more than two photos per artist and four from any one post. First up: a bronze family in Yinchuan, China, that has picked up an extra member.
More: **Top 100 Photos This Week**
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### 🧒 A Bronze Family Out for a Walk — On Yinchuan Pedestrian Street, Ningxia, China 🇨🇳
This bronze family has picked up an extra member. A toddler has taken the bronze woman’s hand and fallen into step next to the bronze boy, as if this had been the plan all along. The sculptures along the street show scenes from local life in Yinchuan.
**💡 Street Fact:** The pedestrian street runs along Gulou South Street, from the Drum Tower to Yinchuan Mall, and has long been nicknamed “Little Shanghai,” according to Meet99.
More: **When Sculptures Come Alive (9 Photos vol. 2)**
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### 🌾 “Stillness in Motion” (Matka Series) — By Olga Ziemska in Orońsko, Poland 🇵🇱
Olga Ziemska uses bundled branches to make a still figure look like it is moving. The artist’s project page describes the 2002 site-specific sculpture at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, made from hand-stacked, locally reclaimed willow. The long sweep behind the body reads like wind pulling at hair.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Stillness in Motion was the first work in Ziemska’s Matka series. “Matka” means “mother” in Polish, so the figure is also about origin and the place we come from.
More: **When Nature Become Art (24 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Olga Ziemska on Instagram**
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### 🪨 “La Scapigliata” — By Justin Bateman in Chiang Mai, Thailand 🇹🇭
Bateman made La Scapigliata with found stones in Chiang Mai in 2021, after Leonardo da Vinci’s original, as his own post shows. The ground shows through between the pebbles, so the portrait looks ancient and temporary at the same time.
**💡 Art History Fact:** The Parma museum that holds Leonardo’s painting lists it as “Testa di fanciulla, detta ‘La scapiliata’” — head of a young woman, known as the disheveled one.
More: **Stone Pebble Portraits by Justin Bateman**
🔗 Follow **Justin Bateman on Instagram**
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### 🎶 “Music Unhurried” (乐韵悠悠) — On Shamian Island, Guangzhou, China 🇨🇳
This bronze group on Shamian Island is called 乐韵悠悠, roughly “Music Unhurried”: a line of children following a violinist. A travel blogger who photographed it noticed the same thing as this photo: a real little girl, smaller than the statues, slipping into the line.
**💡 Place Fact:** Shamian later became a diplomatic and trading district. Guangzhou’s official city guide records that more than ten countries kept consulates there, alongside nine foreign banks and over forty foreign companies.
More: **See What Happens When People Enter the Artwork**
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### 🏹 Spirit of the Medieval Huntress — By Anna & The Willow at Skipton Castle Woods, England 🇬🇧
Anna Cross made her nine-foot Spirit of the Medieval Huntress for the Woodland Trust at Skipton Castle Woods. According to Sylvan Skills, the 2018 commission recalls the woods’ past as a larder and hunting ground for Skipton Castle.
**💡 Restoration Fact:** After the original willow wore out, Sylvan Skills rebuilt and rewove the sculptures in 2024. The first new layer was woven in spirals and curves for strength, and the Huntress got a bow shaped more like a traditional yew bow.
More: **When Nature Become Art (8 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Anna & The Willow on Instagram**
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### 🌺 Bougainvillea Shades — Artist Unknown in Pondicherry, India 🇮🇳
The painted face, the blue sunglasses and the hoop earrings work on their own, but the bougainvillea spilling over the wall gives her the hair. It changes with every season and every bloom. We don’t know who painted it.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Oxford University Herbaria links bougainvillea to Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s 1766–1769 voyage, when the naturalist Philibert Commerson found the plant. Pondicherry itself was a French colony, and its French Quarter still shows it.
More: **Street Art in Pondicherry, India**
📷 Photo: Kanthan
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### 🌿 “Diosa de la Naturaleza” (Goddess of Nature) — By SFHIR at HLA El Ángel in Málaga, Spain 🇪🇸
SFHIR painted Diosa de la Naturaleza at HLA El Ángel, a hospital in Málaga (see his timelapse). The bush becomes her hair, while her painted hand holds a green heart.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** She is one part of a much bigger wall. HLA’s own blog describes SFHIR’s 2019 Málaga project as an 80-meter mural about medicine and Málaga culture.
More: **Photo + Video — Street Art by SFHIR in Málaga, Spain**
🔗 Visit **SFHIR’s website**
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### 🥣 Porcelain Bowl and Swallow — By Odeith
A bowl, saucer and spoon seem to float in front of the wall while a swallow flies in. The shadows make the porcelain look as solid as the artist crouching below it.
**💡 Culture Fact:** The ceramic swallow is a familiar Portuguese symbol. Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro’s 1891 swallows still hang from the ceiling of the Tabacaria Mónaco on Lisbon’s Rossio square.
More: **Amazing 3D Illusions by Odeith (10 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Odeith on Instagram**
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### 🌸 Bougainvillea Portrait — By Fábio Gomes Trindade in Trindade, Goiás, Brazil 🇧🇷
In his original post, Fábio places the mural on Rua 6 in Conjunto Arco-Íris, Trindade. Jornal Opção reports that the portrait was inspired by the young model Sarai and uses a lilac bougainvillea as her hair.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Bougainvillea’s colorful “petals” are really modified leaves called bracts. Gardens by the Bay explains that the true flowers are the small white or cream ones tucked inside.
More: **Nature Meets Art in Brazilian Masterpieces**
🔗 Follow **Fábio Gomes Trindade on Instagram**
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### 👁️ The Eye — By Näutil in Siouville-Hague, France 🇫🇷
This Second World War bunker on the beach at Siouville-Hague already had plenty of mood. Näutil painted one huge eye on it, and the tide does the rest: the concrete block looks like it is watching the sea.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** TF1 Info named the artist as Cyrille Corlays, alias Näutil, and reported that the eye had become a local landmark before he later painted it closed.
More: **By Näutil – In Siouville-Hague, France**
🔗 Follow **Näutil on Instagram**
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### 🛏️ “Cobija de plantas” (Blanket of Plants) — By El Decertor in Imbabura, Ecuador 🇪🇨
El Decertor painted the pillow, the face and the hand. The blanket is a real hedge, so it grows, changes color and needs a trim now and then. He painted it in Imbabura for the Numu Festival.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Decertor is Daniel Cortez from Lima, Peru. Gateways to Newark describes his public murals as “weatherproof memories.”
More: **By El Decertor in Imbabura, Ecuador**
🔗 Follow **El Decertor on Facebook**
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### 🐱 “Peeking Cat” — By Andy Dice Davies in Cheltenham, England 🇬🇧
Andy Dice Davies (Dice 67) painted “Peeking cat” under the road at Cirencester Road in Charlton Kings, reached through Little Herberts nature reserve. The dark brick arch becomes a hiding place for a very large kitten.
More: **Step Back! (8 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Andy Dice Davies on Facebook**
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### 🪴 “True Nature” — By Daniel Popper in Cancún, Mexico 🇲🇽
The figure holds its face away from its head with two enormous hands, and there is a garden inside. Leaves spill out of the opening, and the sea is visible beyond.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Popper’s studio says the 2023 sculpture stands in Bohemian Square in Cancún, made with Grupo Rosanegra from a steel subframe and glass-fiber reinforced concrete.
More: **Daniel Popper Builds Giants You Can Walk Through (32 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Daniel Popper on Instagram**
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### 🐕 Tug of Dog — Artist Unknown
The bronze children are already pulling hard on the leash. Then a real dog walks in and goes straight for the bronze dog’s tail.
**💡 Bronze Fact:** Bronze keeps a record of touch. Getty’s guidelines for bronze sculpture note that repeated touching can wear away the patina on raised areas and expose bare metal.
More: **Clever Dog Art (10 Photos)**
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### 📚 “Gabriele D’Annunzio” — By Alessandro Verdi in Piazza della Borsa, Trieste, Italy 🇮🇹
Two visitors lean in to read over the shoulder of the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, in Alessandro Verdi’s 2019 bronze on Piazza della Borsa. His quiet reading break has turned into a study group.
**💡 Trieste Fact:** D’Annunzio’s own time in Trieste was short: TriesteMetro says he stayed briefly in 1902 with the actress Eleonora Duse.
More: **When Sculptures Come Alive (9 Photos vol. 2)**
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### 🐾 A Helping Paw — By Trevor Cole in Nanaimo, Canada 🇨🇦
The painted boy looks sad, and the dog reaches out to him. Erika Lopez photographed her dog Carlos at this stencil by Trevor Cole in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
More: **Kindness Is the Default (9 Photos)**
📷 Photo: Erika Lopez
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### 🌋 Fontana Luminosa — By Nicola D’Antino in L’Aquila, Italy 🇮🇹
When low sun catches the falling water, it looks like lava. Sculptor Nicola D’Antino made the fountain in the 1930s: two bronze women holding up a conca abruzzese, the region’s traditional water jar. It stands in Piazza Battaglione degli Alpini, at the start of Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
**💡 Fountain Fact:** The fountain gets its name from the colored lights that play on it at night. In winter, the same site notes, the water pouring from the jar can freeze into a glittering ice sculpture.
More: **Fontana Luminosa in L’Aquila, Italy**
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### 🌀 “Below” — By Jon Foreman at Lindsway Bay, Wales 🇬🇧
Foreman called this 2021 piece “Below.” From above, the rings and dense patterns make flat sand look like a deep hole. The sea is just beyond it, so the illusion was always temporary.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Foreman’s official biography says his sand drawings can reach 100 meters across.
More: **The Breathtaking World of Jon Foreman (15 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Jon Foreman on Instagram**
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### 🤖 R2-D2 Brings Flowers — By EFIX
EFIX gives a public trash bin an admirer. R2-D2 holds out a bunch of flowers, and a small heart floats above his dome. The bin, as bins do, plays it cool.
More: **EFIX’s Clever Art (9 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **EFIX on Instagram**
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### 😂 “Nadine and the Surprisingly Effective Joke” — By David Zinn
A rock at the edge of the sidewalk becomes a creature laughing so hard its mouth is wide open. Tiny Nadine has just told the joke. Zinn also sells the drawing as a print.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Zinn’s own site says his drawings are made only of chalk, charcoal and found objects, and are improvised on the spot. He calls the process “ephemeral pareidolic anamorphosis.” Pareidolia is the brain’s habit of seeing faces in random shapes.
More: **Street Art by David Zinn — Nadine and the Surprisingly Effective Joke (7 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **David Zinn on Instagram**
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### ✋ “The Giant Hand of Vyrnwy” — By Simon O’Rourke near Lake Vyrnwy, Wales 🇬🇧
When the tallest tree in Wales was damaged in a storm, a 50-foot stump was left standing. Simon O’Rourke carved it into The Giant Hand of Vyrnwy, which he describes as the tree’s last attempt to reach for the sky.
**💡 Tree Fact:** The tree was a 124-year-old Douglas fir, a species native to North America that was brought to the UK in 1827.
More: **From Tallest Tree to Towering Sculpture: The Giant Hand of the UK**
🔗 Visit **Simon O’Rourke’s website**
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### 🐝 Mimic Wasp — By Odeith
Odeith paints the wasp with enough shadow to lift it off the wall, in the anamorphic 3D style he is known for. Beautiful from a distance. Less so if you imagine it moving.
More: **3D Art by Odeith (25 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Odeith on Instagram**
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### 🧦 Keeping the Feet Warm — Artist Unknown
Someone decided these two pipes looked cold. Painted socks and chalk sneakers turn them into a pair of legs ready for a walk. We don’t know who made it.
More: **Made You Smile (15 Photos)**
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### 🦁 “Mane Problem” — By David Zinn
A tuft of grass in a sidewalk crack becomes a lion’s mane. Zinn captioned the post for this drawing: “Nathan removed the thorn but couldn’t do anything about the mane problem.”
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Zinn’s official bio says he has been making art in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan, since 1987.
More: **Cute Art by David Zinn (16 Photos)**
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### 🪨 “Rising Cairn” — By Celeste Roberge
This sculpture is often shared online as “The Weight of Grief,” but its title is Rising Cairn. It is welded, galvanized steel holding 4,000 pounds of granite.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** There is more than one. Roberge’s site lists Rising Cairns at the Runnymede Sculpture Farm in Woodside, California, and at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, plus a prototype she kept. My Modern Met reports that she welded the frame as a rough, larger-than-life likeness of her own body.
More: **The Weight We Carry (10 Artworks)**
🔗 Visit **Celeste Roberge’s website**
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### 🌀 “Rubra Spiralis” — By Jon Foreman at Sandy Haven Beach, Wales 🇬🇧
Foreman made Rubra Spiralis over two days in 2024 at Sandy Haven Beach in Pembrokeshire. He wrote that the tide stopped short of the piece, which gave him time to finish the spiral.
**💡 Geology Fact:** Sandy Haven gives its name to a rock formation in the Old Red Sandstone. The national park’s geology guide notes that it holds the Townsend Tuff, a four-meter layer of volcanic ash that fell on ancient coastal mud flats.
More: **Land Art by Jon Foreman**
🔗 Follow **Jon Foreman on Instagram**
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### 🐯 “Tijgers van de Kolenkit” — By Sidney Waerts in Amsterdam, Netherlands 🇳🇱
Sidney Waerts painted Tijgers van de Kolenkit, the Tigers of the Kolenkit, on this Amsterdam building. The big cats look calm, until you notice they cover the whole facade.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** “Kolenkit” means coal scuttle. The Dutch monument register says the neighborhood’s 1956 Opstandingskerk got that nickname because its tower looks just like one, and the church became the icon of the Bos en Lommer district.
More: **Step Back! (8 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Sidney Waerts on Instagram**
📷 Photo: Marieke Weijsman
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### 🏖️ Wile E. Coyote — By PUFFERFISH
Wile E. Coyote has had another bad day. PUFFERFISH carves him into the sand as if he had just been flattened into the beach, a classic cartoon ending.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner debuted in the 1949 short Fast and Furry-ous. Chuck Jones said the coyote owed something to Mark Twain’s description of a hungry, unlucky coyote.
More: **Summer Fun (9 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **PUFFERFISH on Instagram**
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### 🌳 “UMI” — By Daniel Popper at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸
The photo shows UMI during The Morton Arboretum’s Human+Nature exhibition. Popper’s studio describes the sculpture as “a woman, a tree, a womb, and a bower.” Its name comes from the Arabic word for “mother.”
**💡 What Happened Next Fact:** After the Human+Nature exhibition closed, UMI was moved from Illinois and rebuilt in Hogan Park at The Aurora Highlands in Aurora, Colorado, Denver7 reported in 2023.
More: **“UMI” at The Morton Arboretum**
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### 🧑🌾 Wheelbarrow Farmer — Artist Unknown
A wheelbarrow makes the body, a tire the head, and old metal bars the arms and legs. Work gloves, shoes, sunglasses, a blue cap and a pitchfork finish the farmer.
**💡 Art History Fact:** Turning found objects into a figure has a famous ancestor: Picasso’s Bull’s Head was made from a bicycle seat and handlebars.
More: **Sculptures With Unique Creativity (8 Photos)**
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### 🥫 Popeye’s Spinach — By Semi O.K in Çayırova, Kocaeli, Turkey 🇹🇷
Semi O.K turns a real tree into spinach bursting out of Popeye’s can. The artist’s own post places the wall in Çayırova, Kocaeli.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** In 1937, Crystal City, Texas, the self-declared “Spinach Capital of the World,” put up a statue of Popeye. Popeye’s official timeline calls it one of the earliest public sculptures of a cartoon character.
More: **Playful Art by Semi O.K (8 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Semi O.K on Instagram**
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### 🫠 “The Vision” — By Cosimo CHEONE Caiffa in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹
Windows, cornices and balconies seem to buckle and melt down the facade of Casa Maiocchi at Corso di Porta Romana 113. CHEONE unveiled The Vision in July 2021, taking cues from Gaudí’s Casa Batlló.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** The commission came from the sun-shade company MV Line. Its project page explains the joke: the windows behind its shades stay cool while the rest of the building melts in the heat.
More: **Amazing 3D Murals by CHEONE! (24 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Cosimo CHEONE Caiffa on Instagram**
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### 🐻 “Three Bears” — At Ayusai Gorge in Almaty, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Bike parked and helmet still on, this rider has stretched out across the big bear’s front legs for a break. The three bears greet visitors at the entrance to the gorge, where the trail into the narrow part begins.
**💡 Name Fact:** Ayusai means “Bear Gorge” in Kazakh. Tengrinews traces the name to the Tian Shan brown bears that once lived there.
More: **When Sculptures Come Alive (9 Photos vol. 2)**
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### 🥬 “Crunchie” — By Helga Stentzel
A few lettuce leaves become ears, paws and a nose, and a green bin gets a resident. Helga Stentzel calls him “Crunchie”, part of her Edible Creatures series.
More: **Made You Smile (10 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Helga Stentzel on Instagram**
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### ⭕ “Circles” — By Spencer Byles near La Colle-sur-Loup, France 🇫🇷
Byles made Circles (photo: Leo Fry) for A Year in a French Forest, in the woods near La Colle-sur-Loup. He kept the exact sites private, so walkers came across the sculptures by chance.
**💡 Ephemeral Art Fact:** Byles says his sculptures are ephemeral and meant to go through changes until they disappear.
More: **When Nature Become Art (8 Photos)**
🔗 Visit **Spencer Byles’s website**
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### 🪵 Driftwood Forest Figure — By Debra Bernier of Vancouver Island, Canada 🇨🇦
Bernier follows the grain, cracks and bends already in the wood. Here a woman’s figure appears in the trunk, while the twigs above her head become a crown. Her Shaping Spirit studio describes her as working from the rainforests of Vancouver Island.
More: **19 Driftwood Sculptures by Debra Bernier**
🔗 Follow **Debra Bernier on Facebook**
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### 🍇 “Gonfleurs de raisin” (Inflaters) — By MiniMiam
The scale flips completely. Tiny workers pump up raisins, and the grapes behind them are what you get when the job is done. MiniMiam is the food photographers Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle; they made this scene in 2016.
**💡 Name Fact:** MiniMiam began in 2002 with a commission, when the pair started using tiny model-train figures to tell stories with food. “Miam” is French for “yum.”
More: **Need a Smile? Start Here (8 Photos)**
🔗 Visit **MiniMiam’s website**
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### 🐶 Dog and Cat — By Brian Mock of Aloha, Oregon, USA 🇺🇸
Screws, sockets, forks and gears give the dog its solid body, while thin rods make the cat look lighter and more cautious. Mock’s portfolio shows sculptures made from recycled scrap metal.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** Mock is a self-taught welder. His official biography says he drew, painted and carved wood before he started sculpting with recycled metal in the late 1990s.
More: **See Eight Times Scrap Metal Found a Pulse**
🔗 Follow **Brian Mock on Instagram**
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### 🕳️ “Mélancolie” — By Albert György, Photographed in Geneva, Switzerland 🇨🇭
Albert György’s bronze Mélancolie became famous through photos taken on the Geneva lakefront. The figure sits bent forward on a bench, with the middle of its body missing.
More: **Being Human (10 Photos)**
🔗 Visit **Albert György’s website**
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### 🤲 “Give” — By Lorenzo Quinn
Two giant white hands cup a young tree on the grass of a park.
**💡 Nerd Fact:** In 2020, Excellence Magazine reported that Give joins a man’s hand and a woman’s hand around an olive tree, as a message of peace, and that Quinn and his gallery gave one to the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta. Quinn’s own site documents Give installations in Florence, Palermo and Pietrasanta in 2020 and 2021.
More: **When Nature Becomes Design (12 Photos)**
🔗 Follow **Lorenzo Quinn on Instagram**
