Walking past an interrupted 7am tryst on Oxford Street this morning, we spotted this hypnotic character leaping from a boarded up shop.

Trent Whitehead‘s character bursts from the boarded up shop, a placid pair of eyes behind a flashing niqab.

Trent’s 3D installation was commissioned for this year’s Art & About – I know we run the risk of turning into an Art & About blog, but it’s been a particularly rich crop this year – and it’s up until the end of the month. Watch a video of the making here.

Two doors down, Jane Becker captures the neighbourhood a little more prosaically with Oxford Street Fauna – the local non-human street life, and I’m not talking zombies. This is all about the more typical sights: rat, guide dog, pigeon, bat, cockroach, and so on.

It’s not quite as fascinating and amazing as Renew Newcastle – where artists and other creative people in the city are actually taking over the run down real estate and setting up art spaces and completely sustainable businesses – but it’s an exciting and imaginative move from the council in what often feels like a tired strip.