The 20 Best Murals of 2014

Image via Complex Original

Location: London

Borondo has produced some of the best work this year through his clever use of space and narrative. His murals don't just sit in the locations where he places them, but instead interact with the spaces they inhabit. This piece on London's East River combines a love for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, in particular John Everett Millais’ rendition of Ophelia. Collaborating with Carmen Maín, Borondo brings Ophelia's death to life, showing her poetically floating along a river, which mimics her Shakespearian death by drowning.

Location: Tunisia

The stark contrast between the solid black portrait and bright highlights is what makes this piece so attractive. Using an uncommon location, Stinkfish has brought his style of portraiture to a city not typically known for its graffiti. However, with the project at the Tunisian open air museum, Djerbahood, several artists migrated to the city, bringing life to the streets.

Location: Kiev, Ukraine

Waone, one half of the duo Interesni Kazki, created a five-story night scene in his hometown of Kiev. The contrast of bright winged-creatures against nighttime constellations leaves viewers with a magical fantasy.

Location: Ushuaia, Argentina

Like other artists on this list, Jaz and Seth Globepainter utilized an uncommon canvas to create a visually dynamic collaboration. Leaving their bustling home of Buenos Aires, the duo created characters that seem at home on the abandoned boat, surrounded by plains and mountains.

Location: Oaxaca, Mexico

Axel Void's portrait of an unknown person migrating from Mexico to the United States stands as a testament to the power of location. By painting this man on the trains where he hoped to find an escape, Axel Void strove to depict the figure in a manner that reflects his life's story.

Location: Moss, Norway

Phlegm always creates characters that are distinctly his own, with crisp, illustrative lines and long limbs. In terms of scale and detail, this six-paneled mural is visually astounding. Viewers could easily get lost in it, spending hours examining the details of individual figures.

Location: Mexico City

Ever and Smithe collaborated on a wall in the latter's hometown of Mexico City. Reminiscent of Ever’s piece with Nychos, he worked with Smithe to deconstruct a figure as a means of seamlessly combining aesthetics. Here, Ever peels back skin to reveal Smithe's watercolor-esque palette of bones.

Location: Durban, South Africa

The scale and detail considered in each of these portraits in Faith47’s home country of South Africa is simply astounding. Each column of the highway underpass was transformed into a detailed face with equally embellished backgrounds.

Location: Rome

The flattened surfaces created by Italian artist Agostino Iacurci are sure to draw the viewer in. Whereas other artists on this list, like Morik, play with earth tones, Iacurci depicts plants with greens more intense than the surrounding vegetation.

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

This mural is marked by apocalyptic and sci-fi imagery. The industrial gears and stark black and white color palette that has defined M-City's style only underscores the end-is-near feeling accompanied by spacecrafts abducting cars.

Location: Atlanta

Fintan Magee is known for his levitating figures, and his dual pair of walls in Atlanta served as the perfect locations for the artist. By placing the two adjacent walls in conversation with one another, rather than creating two separate pieces, the artist changes the way that not only this space functions, but how murals can work together.

Location: London

Again, Borondo finds the perfect metaphor for his location. Here, the myth of Narcissus is fittingly rendered with the figure's reflection as an integral part of the meaning. As the myth goes, Narcissus was in love with his reflection, but not realizing it was his own, he drowned to be with it.

Location: Villa Soriano, Uruguay

Pastel mimicked the hues of the sky and surrounding vegetation through his repeating motifs that adorn the side of an abandoned building. Although his watercolor palette is always engaging, this bleak minimalism is particularly strong. The combination of arrowheads and the black outlines of ghostly plants along an unused building represent a haunted kind of beauty.

Location: Gambia

With the lush foliage and dirt-covered walls, you can practically feel the mosquitos swarming to drink you dry. The surrounding scenery makes for a fitting home for ROA's oversized insect, whose black and white illustrative style stands out against the natural elements of Gambia.

Location: Vienna, Austria

There is something innately sweet about the placement of Frau Isa's two characters. Showing them nestled between two trees and about to embrace, she has captured a moment of pure love between her figures.

Location: New York

Typically, the spaces found in Manhattan for artists to paint are at street level. The L.I.S.A. Project was able to acquire a rare space above the street level for Shepard Fairey, however. The optimistic message, graphic imagery, and unusual location (at least for Manhattan) are a perfect trifecta for the piece to be seen from block away. This legibility on the city streets helps to push a message that can brighten the day of passing viewers.

Location: Rome

The decrepit walls make a fitting canvas for Faith47's washes of grays and beiges. By perfectly matching tones with the existing structure, she presents a female figure that seems at home. Pairing this figure with overwriting that mimics the scribe-like qualities of monikers, she has found the perfect way to incorporate style with surroundings.

Location: Las Vegas

Sometimes murals don't need to have an in-depth dissertation to accompany the imagery and underscore some high-minded meaning. Sometimes murals can just be fun and bring happiness to the surrounding community. Collective Bicicleta Sem Freio does exactly this through the use of bright colors and bold lines reminiscent of comic books.

Location: Lodz, Poland

Several European artists this year rose to prominence through their focus on flattening their imagery, rather than focusing on depth, as many of their contemporaries do. Morik was one such artist, whose abstracted figure, comprised of geometric shapes and neutral colors, mimics the neatly stacked buildings it is surrounded by.

Location: Isla Mujeres, Mexico

As a part of “PangeaSeed Sea Walls,” a project to raise awareness about the environment in the ocean, these three artists completed a small mural representing their distinct characters. In line with PangeaSeed's goal, Nosego painted a whale, while Tatiana Suarez and Persue1's characters float at the bottom of the ocean.