My Dog Sighs Plants a Giant Floral Eye at Sam’s Sunflowers on Hayling Island
On Hayling Island in Hampshire, British street artist My Dog Sighs has taken one of the most recognisable images in his practice, his reflective eye, and planted it into the landscape. Created in partnership with Sam’s Sunflowers, the monumental floral artwork covers approximately 13,600 square metres, or 3.3 acres, transforming millions of cornflowers, pick-your-own blooms and sweeping sunflower “eyelashes” into a vast eye that can be seen from the air and explored from within.
My Dog Sighs’ 13,600-square-metre living floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
It is an extraordinary change of material for an artist whose eyes have watched over walls, buildings and streets around the world. My Dog Sighs has become particularly associated with emotionally charged, eye murals, often incorporating reflections that connect a portrait with its surroundings, including his signature eye mural at Cosham Railway Station in Portsmouth.
Here, however, paint has been replaced by petals, agricultural land has become canvas and the familiar painted eye has expanded until the viewer can physically disappear inside it.
Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
From Street Art to Living Land Art
Speaking to GraffitiStreet about the project, My Dog Sighs explains the project began in early April, when Sam from Sam’s Sunflowers approached him with the idea of translating his signature eye into a vast floral artwork. What followed was months of planning and preparation before the artist returned to Hayling Island to help complete the design as the fields reached their summer bloom.
My Dog Sighs is quick to credit Sam with the technical expertise behind the planting. Neither knew quite how successfully something this ambitious would translate into flowers, which meant keeping the project quiet while the design took shape.
“I’m not sure he’d done something so big or detailed, but I loved his vision so agreed straight away,” My Dog Sighs explains. “He knew plants and planting, but my understanding of how it all worked was extremely limited, so the design process was a little ‘suck it and see’. Once we’d locked it down, Sam used gps and a drone to plant. The planting ‘drill’ is 3 metres wide so that’s the thinnest line in the design.”
We continued to test My Dog Sighs’ flower knowledge by asking him exactly what had been planted to create the giant eye.
“Ha. You’ve got me now. Sam estimates around 10 million flowers made up the whole design. The lashes are sun flowers and the iris ans reflection are cornflowers (they come in a range of colours from purple, blue through to white. I know there were others too but I’m afraid I can’t remember them all.”
From above, the composition resolves into a gigantic eye spreading across the farmland. Millions of vivid cornflowers create areas of colour and definition, while the planting forms the iris, pupil and surrounding reflection. At ground level, however, the experience changes completely.
Visitors within My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Visitors are invited to enter the artwork, following pathways that weave through the iris and pupil before continuing into the surrounding fields. Flowers can be picked and carried home, meaning the artwork is experienced through walking, looking, touching and participating in the landscape.
Visitors taking photographs from inside My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Walking through the eye creates a curious shift in perspective, because its complete image becomes impossible to perceive from within. The aerial view gives us the artwork as an image; the pathways give us the artwork as an experience.
Visitors exploring My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
The Eye Leaves the Wall
My Dog Sighs’ eyes have long carried a strong relationship with observation. On a building, an enormous eye can appear to look back at the people passing beneath it, while reflections painted into the iris frequently complicate this exchange, suggesting another landscape, memory or figure existing somewhere behind the surface.
Recreating that reflected world in flowers presented an unexpected challenge, particularly when it came to translating the darker elements of the image into a living landscape.
“We weren’t sure how to do this until right at the end when all the flowers were out. There aren’t black flowers so we decided to cut the design into the reflection.”
Rather than introducing another planted colour, sections of the field were cut away to create the darker forms within the reflection. The sheer scale changes the relationship between image and viewer completely. As My Dog Sighs explains:
“The piece is so huge that even with a drone, people are so minuscule in relation to the artwork that standing in the reflection you are completely swamped and vertically invisible.”
He points to the eye’s appearance in The Times as an example of just how difficult that scale is to comprehend: even across a half-page photograph, the drone pilot lying in the centre of the pupil is barely visible.
Visitors exploring My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
Like the street art that has shaped much of My Dog Sighs’ practice, this living artwork also carries its own sense of impermanence. The flowers will eventually fade, the agricultural landscape will change and the giant eye will survive through photographs, memories and the people who walked through it.
It places My Dog Sighs’ signature style within the language of land art while retaining the accessibility that has always underpinned his street practice. You do not need to enter a museum to encounter it; you can simply walk into a field.
Walking through the mown reflection inside My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
A Tradition of Giant Floral Artworks
The project also continues an annual tradition at Sam’s Sunflowers, where large-scale floral designs have celebrated people, events and cultural moments.
Speaking to Claire Jenkins, who was visiting Sam’s Sunflowers with her family, it was clear that the project had a strong local resonance.
“We’re from the local area, around Havant, and I grew up in Portsmouth, so we’ve always been intrigued by My Dog Sighs’ work and enjoyed seeing it around the city. When we saw that Sam’s Sunflowers had recreated his iconic eye in such a creative way, we knew we had to come and see it in full bloom.
We come here every year with the family, and it just seems to get bigger and better each time. This year feels especially special.”
Previous field artworks have included a red rose connected with the Women’s Rugby World Cup, a lion celebrating Team GB at the Olympics and a Union flag marking the Coronation. This year, the collaboration with My Dog Sighs brings contemporary urban art into that agricultural tradition.
Visitors walking through the sunflower fields with freshly picked blooms at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Alongside the flower fields, Sam’s Sunflowers has created its 2026 maize maze in celebration of Sir David Attenborough’s centenary. The connection is particularly local: Sam’s Sunflowers notes that David Attenborough visited Stoke Fruit Farm on Hayling Island in 2020 while filming the BBC series The Green Planet, and this year’s maze celebrates his lifelong contribution to bringing the natural world to audiences around the globe.
Sir David Attenborough centenary maize maze. Image copyright GraffitiStreet
My Dog Sighs admits he never made it into the two-hour maze himself. He was busy helping to cut the eye’s reflection before Sam took him and “Mrs My Dog” sunflower picking instead, leaving their dining-room table, as he puts it, “a riot of sunshine and sunflower pollen”.
Inside My Dog Sighs’ Giant Floral Eye on Hayling Island
The artwork may have been conceived to create an extraordinary aerial image, yet its pathways bring people directly into the composition. Children disappear into the pupil, families wander through the iris, and visitors can pick flowers around it and take a fragment of the landscape home.
Walking into the iris of My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
That participation connects naturally with My Dog Sighs’ wider philosophy as an artist. Before the international murals and major exhibitions, his practice pioneered Free Art Friday, through which artworks were left in public spaces for strangers to discover and keep. More recently, that same spirit of participation has continued through his Easter treasure hunts around Southsea, where art, place and the pleasure of discovery are once again brought together beyond the conventional gallery setting.
My Dog Sighs’ 13,600-square-metre giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
The materials and scale may have changed dramatically, yet the underlying generosity remains recognisable. His work continues to invite people to encounter art unexpectedly, to search for it, move through it, share it and, in this case, even take a small part of the experience home.
Visitors picking sunflowers beside My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Could It Be a World Record?
At 13,600 square metres, the Hayling Island eye is unquestionably enormous. My Dog Sighs believes the finished artwork may even exceed other known large-scale floral designs.
“I think it does. We haven’t had time to actually apply, but the only other design, in China, is around 12,000.”
No formal record application has yet been submitted, so the potential world-record status remains unconfirmed.
Visit My Dog Sighs’ Giant Eye at Sam’s Sunflowers
The floral eye can be experienced at Sam’s Sunflowers on Hayling Island, Hampshire, during August 2026, while the fields are in bloom. Because this is a living, seasonal artwork, its appearance will continue to change throughout the summer.
A pigeon perched among the sunflowers beside My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Visitors can walk through the eye, explore the surrounding flower fields, pick their own blooms and visit the neighbouring Sir David Attenborough centenary maize maze. Sam’s Sunflowers advises visitors to check its daily opening information before travelling, and confirms that the sunflower fields are accessed using PO11 0RT rather than the Stoke Fruit Farm Shop address.
Two visitors with freshly picked bunches of sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Frequently Asked Questions
The 2026 floral eye at Sam’s Sunflowers was created through a collaboration between British street artist My Dog Sighs and Sam’s Sunflowers on Hayling Island.
My Dog Sighs’ giant floral eye is at Sam’s Sunflowers on Hayling Island, Hampshire, near Portsmouth on England’s south coast. The living land artwork forms part of the farm’s 2026 summer flower fields.
Sam estimates that around 10 million flowers make up the complete design. Sunflowers form the sweeping eyelashes, while cornflowers in shades of purple, blue and white create much of the iris. Darker elements within the reflection were created by cutting sections into the flowering field.
Project information supplied to GraffitiStreet places the artwork at approximately 13,600 square metres, equivalent to around 3.3 acres, within Sam’s wider flower fields.
Yes. Pathways have been created through the iris and pupil, allowing visitors to experience the giant image from inside rather than simply seeing it from an aerial viewpoint.
The floral artwork can be visited during August 2026 while the flowers are in bloom. As the installation is entirely living and seasonal, its appearance will change as the flowers grow, are picked and respond to the summer weather.
Yes. Sam’s Sunflowers confirms that its 2026 maize maze is located on the same site as the sunflower fields and celebrates 100 years of Sir David Attenborough.
Smiley face drawn into a sunflower by gently removing the pollen at Sam’s Sunflowers, Hayling Island, Hampshire, August 2026. Image copyright GraffitiStreet.
Discover My Dog Sighs at GraffitiStreet
For a deeper look at the artist’s practice, from his signature eye murals and found-object works to Free Art Friday, immersive installations and public projects, read our complete guide: Who Is My Dog Sighs?.
With all this talk of flowers, fields and green fingers, it feels rather fitting that one of the My Dog Sighs works currently on view at GraffitiStreet gallery features a striking green eye within a self-portrait.
My Dog Sighs, I Live in the Moment, Just Not This One (Self Portrait), 2024. Available via GraffitiStreet
Discover more of My Dog Sighs’ work with GraffitiStreet, with original pieces currently available to view at our Chichester gallery and further works available through our online store.
Visit us at GraffitiStreet Gallery, 25A West Street, Chichester, West Sussex, England PO19 1QW, or contact us for a bespoke acquisition service and personalised advice on available works.