When Neglected Buildings Become Seriously Trippy Art Projects

If you've ever spotted surreal street art featuring 1950s pin-up models with kitten heads, chances are it's the work of Macarena "Macay" Yañez. The Chilean artist has spent a good portion of the last four years covering urban walls with her hybrid creatures, which she says are meant to "reintroduce the colors of nature in the city."

Macay is one of the better-established female street artists working today, and a crusty old (male) writer might say there's something distinctly feminine about her aesthetic, which brings in bathing beauties, butterflies and colorful birds from the tropics. The artworks of Macay, who is 30 and lives in Santiago, are both playful and disconcerting, as you never quite expect to encounter on the street a group of humans frolicking on the back of a mutant bird, say, or a field of flowers with screaming, lipsticked mouths.