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.

A wall could look as flat as flat gets until street artist Peeta gets his hands on it with a can of spray paint, distorting its surface, confusing its perspective with three-dimensional illusions. Sometimes, the effect is so convincing, you can’t tell which windows are real and which ones are painted, or whether some elements of the composition really are popping out beyond the wall. Hint: if you think they are, like in the case of the windows on the green-roofed building below, you’re probably wrong.

Peeta – real name Manuel Di Rita, a resident of Venice, Italy who’s been painting graffiti since 1993 – has really upped his game over the last few years. A member of Padova-based EAD crew and New York City-based FX and RWK crews, Peeta also works on canvas and with actual 3D sculpture in PVC, bronze, acrylic resin and fiberglass. His experience with sculptural media really shows in his newest murals, which take the familiar forms of letter-based street art and manipulate them into abstract creations.

“Today, through my anamorphic works I redesign the volumes of any kind of surface involved, thus causing with my paintings a temporary interruption of normality by altering the perception of familiar contexts and so raising a different understanding of spaces, and consequently, of reality as a whole,” says Peeta.

“Metaphorically, I want to neutralize preconceptions and urging the emergence of new perspectives. Anamorphism totally embodies the intent, always pivotal in my production, to reveal the deceptiveness of human perception, the fallacy of narrow and fixed points of view through visual tricks which, proceeding from the attempt to confer a three-dimensional semblance on a pictorial representation, ultimately reveal their will to deceive.”

Peeta’s works have popped up – literally – all over the world, from China to Oregon to Barcelona. Give him a follow on Instagram @peeta_ead to keep up with his anamorphic works and occasionally get some interesting backstory on particular pieces.

A nightmarishly oversized spider emerges from a gaping hole in a wall in this anamorphic optical illusion mural by French street artist Denys Pasco, better known as Densoner. Known for his highly detailed graffiti style as well as oversized murals frequently featuring creatures of the wild, Densoner created a creepy effect with the massive arachnid’s legs stretching out toward the viewer.

The process of creating ‘Eat Me’ is captured on video and sped up so you can watch the spider come alive in the hands of the artist. Denoner starts off by painting a photorealistic black hole on a tattered urban wall, with the edges painted in shadow to make it appear 3D.

Then, with a few strokes of white, the spider begins to appear, becoming more and more threatening as the artist works. Watch the video all the way to the end for a fun surprise.

At first glance it looks as if thin layers of these walls have been slowly torn away in concentric shapes, leading deeper and deeper into the spaces on the other side. No longer clearly cinder block, brick or any other solid building material, the walls seem as if they really could consist of nothing more than stack after stack of thin paper in rainbow hues.

Germany-based street artist 1010 creates the effect with nothing more than spray paint, adding a third dimension to flat surfaces with clever use of color, shape and shadows. The works range from actual paper cuts that are framed for gallery walls to murals covering multiple stories of a building, like the installation created for contemporary art festival Knotempunkt in Hamburg.

Making small creations out of stacked paper likely give 1010 a chance to study the shapes and shadows that make his illusions so effective on a larger scale. “In this case painting a shadow does the trick,” the artist tells Hashimoto Contemporary Gallery. “I call them holes, abyss, passage or portals, names that leave enough space for interpretation and projection for the viewer.”

You know what a lenticular image is, even if you’ve never heard the word. Applied to a rippled surface in a certain way, a lenticular image shifts in and out of focus depending on the angle you view it from, sometimes producing an animated effect. It’s seen on billboards, children’s toys, and even on the streets. Check out these 18 works of lenticular graffiti, murals and other forms of urban art.

ROA in London

(images via: grievousbodilycharm)

A latticed warehouse door at Corby House on Curtain Road in London provides the ideal setting for lenticular graffiti, and by far the best use of it (so far) was this rabbit by artist ROA. From one angle, you can see a fairly realistic rendering of a furry rabbit, and from the other you get a black silhouette with the rabbit’s veins and arteries showing in bright red.

Mentalgassi for Amnesty International

(images via: design boom, unurth)

Street art collective Mentalgassi, along with UK-based Brothers and Sisters, teamed up with Amnesty International in honor of Troy Davis, a man who was convicted of murder and put to death in Atlanta despite doubts about his innocence. The initial work of lenticular graffiti, depicting Davis’ face, was placed on wrought iron bars in London to call attention to his cause. The artists have since completed many similar projects for Amnesty involving other cases including Fatima Hussein Badi and Jabbar Savalan.. The series is called, appropriately enough, ‘Making the Invisible Visible.’

ROA Lenticular on a Smaller Scale

(images via: unurth)

ROA took his lenticular works indoors with a showing at Brooklyn’s Factory Fresh. The works displayed included a rat painted on an arrangement of wooden posts as well as a small rabbit on black doors.

Jokers and Clowns by Chu

(images via: @bosh)

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am – Stuck in the middle with you.” These lyrics apparently inspired a dual-perspective work by street artist Chu, gracing the same shutters as ROA’s rabbit, above. See a video of the finished work at Chu’s blog.

London Street Art by Dr. D

(images via: mermaid99)

Yes, those Cordy House shutters are very popular. They also played host to this work by Dr. D in 2009. Here’s a bit about this artist, from his website: “It was about 1999, after reading No Logo by Naomi Klein, in particular the bit about Ron English changing billboards with paint alterations, it occurred to me that I could do something similar. I cut the letters “Su” from one billboard and placed them over another. The ad that had read “Suddenly everything clicks” had been subverted to say “Suddenly everything Sucks”. Just for the record some boards are anagrams of the available letters, some are just stupid, some are trying to draw your attention to an issue, hopefully they’re all more amusing and less mind numbing than being constantly sold crap that you don’t really need. The billboards are usually real cut n paste not Photoshop as has been the understandable accusation of those who haven’t seen them in the flesh. Obviously if you’re making posters from scratch, as some are here too, then you’re going to use a stencil or turn to your computer, but you still have to get them up and I’ve yet to find the ‘Control Alt Complete’ command on mine…”

Ludo Shutter Art

(images via: vandalog)

Another artist, Ludo, put his own spin on the spot in 2010. The Paris-based artist creates works in gray and white with splashes of bright acid green, making his work highly recognizable.

ROA’s Lenticular Room Divider

(image via: artsmeme)

ROA, who is from Ghent, Belgium, might just be the king of lenticular street art. In 2010, he applied his signature animal x-ray style to a hinged room divider at the New Puppy Gallery in Los Angeles.

Mentalgassi in Berlin

(images via: unurth)

Pictured Fences 1 from Mntl Gassi on Vimeo.

Mentalgassi lightens the mood a little bit from their super-serious Amnesty International project by bringing some funny faces into their lenticular works in Berlin.

Transforming Beauty by David Ellis, Maya Hayuk, SASU & Yuri Shimojo

(images via: arrested motion)

Artists David Ellis, Maya Hayuk, Yuri Shimojo and SASU used a giant custom-made lenticular lens for a ‘live motion’ mural entitled Transforming Beauty. Installed during the construction phase of a new Sephora retail store in Manhattan, the mural is comprised of holographic images that change through the lens as you walk.

University of Naples Metro Station

(images via: dezeen)

The entire University of Naples metro station in Italy is one big lenticular showcase.  Not only are the walls covered in holographic images seen through lenticular lenses, but the stairs feature images of one of Italy’s most famous historic figures, Dante Aligheri, and his love Beatrice. The effects, which were designed by New York-based Karim Rashid, are colorful and triply.

Unidentified Lenticular in Miami

(image via: mlpa)

This lenticular street mural was spotted by a photographer in Miami. Got the artist ID? Let us know.

Medusa Anamorph

(images via: truly-design)

This one isn’t lenticular, but it is an incredible optical illusion. Artists Ninja1 and Mach505 create a terrifying – and awesome – 3D vision of Medusa using various surfaces in a factory/urban lab. Check out more optical illusion graffiti.