Blurring the lines between reality and illusion in street art is Peeta’s specialty. You could stand right in front of one of his creations, gazing up at its proportions with your own eyes, and still barely be able to tell which elements are three-dimensional and which aren’t. His latest works are just as incredible as ever, transforming the facades of buildings in Mannheim, Germany; Padua, Italy; Costa Smeralda, Sardinia; Lisbon, Portugal and more.

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Typically designed to meld with a vivid blue sky, his creations are best viewed on a bright and sunny day, though some can be found in shady niches as well. His mastery of light and shadow creates voids and projections where there are none. His ability to craft convincing abstract shapes is likely aided by the fact that he’s a sculptor, too, shaping and painting aluminum.

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Last time we caught up with Peeta (aka Manuel Di Rita), who’s based in Venice, Italy, he was fresh off a spate of multi-story murals that showcased a tremendous growth on his talents. Throughout 2019, he’s been hard at work, his newest project a composition of pale blue and gray on a private residential building created as part of the Stadt.Wand.Kunst mural project.

“The wait is finally over. Under the blue sky and with temperatures that you would rather sit in the shade, movement has come in the past few days in STADT.WAND.KUNST 2019 – in the truest sense of the word. The Venetian artist Manuel Di Rita, aka PEETA , braved the heat and transformed the facade of a private house in the Zehntstr. 1 to a masterpiece. The picture – which should rather be called an oversized sculpture because of its three-dimensionality – is the start of a new, colorful season of large-format murals in the Mannheim urban area.”

“I loved this building since the beginning and I tried my best to combine multidisciplinary skills to transform it while keeping its original taste,” says Peeta on Instagram. “Thanks to the city of Mannheim and the great people that supported and worked on this project.”

Check out more on Instagram @peeta_ead.

The streets of Brooklyn are a little brighter these days with the addition of two new pieces by Spanish street artist Pejac, including one that appears to be chiseled out of a brick facade. Both reflect on the impact of cities on nature; one comments on conspicuously absent greenery while the other illustrates Jeff Goldblum’s infamous Jurrasic Park line, “Life… uh… finds a way.” One is a little bleak, suggesting that trees might someday go the way of dinosaurs, while the other is a tad more hopeful.

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Though it may look like bricks were removed to create the piece, it’s actually just clever shading created with some spray paint and a cardboard stencil.

“‘Fossil’ works as a harbinger of a hypothetical fatal future where the only memory we have of nature is the fosilized form of a tree in a brick wall,” says Pejac. “This work can be found at 27 Scott Ave, Brooklyn.”

On ‘Inner Strength,’ Pejac says “In opposition to the previous work here I speak of a future where nature breaks the barriers imposed by the hand of man and recovering the lost ground. Man loses but we all win.”

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Unfortunately, ‘Fossil’ was quickly vandalized with the spray-painted question ‘Is this art?’ while Pejac responded on Instagram, “Quite an effective way to ask a question. But next time just send me a DM.”

Previously, Pejac created a series of bird silhouettes in a Croatian window, ‘cleaned’ the paint off a brick building to reveal the shape of flourishing vines, and painted convincing illusions of keyholes and windows on cement.

Street art leaves the city and goes out into the woods in search of a new context without defacing nature thanks to a few massive rolls of clear engineering film. With Moscow-based artist Evgeny Ches’s ‘cellograffiti,’ animals and text loom large between the trunks of trees in temporary installations with a ghostly effect. The residents of the forest often take center stage, including squirrels, polar bears and chimpanzees.

Ches finds it a natural transition (no pun intended) since he likes to integrate the surroundings into each of his works, letting the surface of whatever he’s painting show through instead of painting a background. He notes that using plastic wrap is also a great way for budding graffiti artists to practice.

“Some years ago I saw some guys, who painting on transparent film fixing between, as I can remember, two columns,” says Ches. “The idea to paint on film belongs to French artist Kanos and some time later he and his friend Astro developed cello graffiti. I find this technology interesting and I decided to borrow this idea and use it in my painting. This contrast seems very interesting to me when street art moves to natural environment, and this contrast and harmony at the same time are combined in photo in very unusual way.”

In the video, Chex explains that the first time he tried the technique, he didn’t realize there was a special kind of plastic wrap he could get that offered a large surface, and used about ten rolls of food film instead. Engineering film is better because it’s dense and remains transparent, allowing the viewer to see the landscape behind the paint.

Set on scaffolding just across the rust-red fence marking the border between Tecate, California and Mexico, street artist JR’s latest installation is a towering statement on immigration issues in the United States. A one-year-old boy named Kikito peers over to the other side with all the innocence and naiveté of childhood, just days after the current U.S. administration announced its intention to end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) immigration program.

The site-specific work is precisely angled to create the illusion that the child is grasping the top of the fence, looking out onto the Californian terrain. Like most of JR’s works, the 70-foot-tall image is rendered in black and white; the child is from the local community on the Mexican side of the border. Curated by Pedro Alonzo, the work asks onlookers to consider the fate of the 800,000 ‘Dreamers’ whose parents wished them a better future.

“Some people dream about fantasy worlds, I dream about walls,” JR told The New York Times in a phone interview. “I wonder, is this kid worrying about what will happen? What does he think? At one year old, you don’t see the frontier or which side is better… people will always migrate. When we built walls, people built tunnels. When we closed places, they went by water. The history of humanity is the story of people migrating.”

“For this little kid, there are no walls and borders.”

The installation will remain in place through October 2nd, and you can pinpoint its exact location at JR’s website.

A London building appears to have fallen victim to an earthquake tremor or foundation collapse, with a jagged section of its brick facade split in half and threatening to collapse altogether. But the deteriorating appearance of this otherwise pristine structure isn’t quite what it seems. Artist Alex Chinneck used 4,000 bricks to create the effect of a ripped piece of paper to create ’Six Pins and a Half Dozen Needles,’ a nearly 66-foot tall sculpture outside a mixed-use complex known as Assembly London.

With the paper reference, the artist pays tribute to the site’s former life as home to the publishing company Hammersmith. Chinneck says he spent months scanning torn sheets of paper to find just the right pleasing edge for the split. The sculpture blends into the main building behind it, partially obscuring a few windows, and its elevated position makes it a real eye-catcher. It’s two bricks deep, and took 14 months to complete, with the help of structural engineers, steelworkers and brick makers. Its stainless steel framework is bolted and welded to the building behind it.

Chinneck previously dropped jaws and raised eyebrows in London with two particularly dramatic installations: an upside-down car clinging to a curling piece of pavement outside the Southbank Centre, and a brick facade sliding off the front of a building in Kent. Unlike these previous works, however, ‘Six Pins’ is permanent.

“The work was onceived to engage people in a fun and uplifting way,” says Chinneck. “Although we use real brick, it was designed with a cartoon-like quality to give the sculpture an endearing artifice and playful personality. I set out to create accessible artworks and I sincerely hope this becomes a popular landmark for London and positive experience for Londoners.”