French street artist, Invader, concealing his identity through pixelation.
According to his website, French street artist Invader “lives and works on Earth”, and he graduated from the Sorbonne. Aside from that, he chooses to remain anonymous, though some sources have identified him as Franck Slama.
Since his work first appeared in the streets of Paris in the 1990s, Invader’s pixelated mosaics inspired by pop culture (namely, video games) have gained significant traction, and he’s now widely recognised as one of the most important street artists of our time. Though he primarily creates mosaics, Invader has also made numerous sought-after prints, which usually sell for between £1,000 and £5,000.
Invader has said he defines himself as “an UFA, an Unidentified Free Artist.” Although little is known about his personal life, some facts can be gleaned about him, and these are interesting to consider when viewing his work. Therefore, below are six things you might not have known about Invader.
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His Pseudonym Was Inspired By A Game
Invader grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when classic games such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man were first released. The artist has stated that these were his “initial source of inspiration” and the basis of his pseudonym, although his “universe is [now] full of other references that complete [his] repertoire.”
Despite an expanded repertoire, the titular space invaders of the 1978 game remain among the artist’s commonly used motifs, appearing in many of his most sought-after prints, including Invasion (Silver) and Invaded Scream. The colourful phantoms of Pac-Man are also regular influences, and they were the inspiration behind popular prints such as the Bowie homage, Aladdin Sane (Pinky).
Space Invaders Arcade Game
His Most Expensive Print Sold For Over £33,000
Half Phantom is a playful image inspired by the four colourful ghosts who act as the main adversaries in the Pac-Man video game franchise, which was first released in 1980. Versions of the four ghosts appear regularly in Invader’s work, making them almost as popular as the space invaders which dominate his art. This print from 2003 holds the current record for being Invader’s most expensive print sold at auction, having reached £33,073 when it was sold by Digard Auction in October 2019.
Half Phantom sold by Digard Auction in 2019
He Sent A Mosaic Into Space
Invader’s obsession with space is clear to see in most of his artwork, from the pixelated aliens of Sunset (Blue and Green GID) to the differently-coloured screenprints based on David Bowie’s iconic 1973 album, Aladdin Sane.
In 2012, Invader took this passion to, quite literally, new heights when he managed to launch one of his mosaics into space using his own resources – namely, a large helium balloon equipped with a camera. The camera allowed Invader to record the entire venture, and the footage was later released as the short film, Art4Space. This led to the artist being invited to install one of his mosaics in the International Space Station, making it the first work of art to be exhibited in space. It remains on the ISS to this day, and it can be tracked via the World Invasion interactive map on Invader’s website.
He Has To Secure His Pieces Against Thieves
In the past ten or fifteen years, Invader’s fame has grown exponentially, making his art extremely sought after. This has led to problems with the artist’s main medium: the street mosaic. Invader himself has said that he’s experienced issues lately because “a large number of [his] pieces are removed, damaged, or destroyed by individuals who seek to resell them.”
As a result, he’s had to come up with new, improved ways of securing his mosaics; the glue and type of tiles he now uses mean that any attempt to remove the artwork tends to result in significant damage to the piece, which, the artist hopes, will put a stop to “this nonsense and painful destruction.”
He Appeared In A Banksy Film
Banksy’s 2010 Exit Through the Gift Shop is a bizarre documentary about street art which follows Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who obsessively films his own life and, eventually, meets several well-known street artists, including Banksy. In the film, Guetta discovers by chance that he is Invader’s cousin, and the documentary includes nighttime footage of Invader and his friends at work.
Map of “Invasions”
He Maps His “Invasions”
Invader is known for staging “invasions” of his artwork in various cities around the world, sometimes doing so in “waves”. In each wave, he usually attempts “to display 20 to 50 pieces per city”, and he attributes different scores between 10 and 100 to each of these pieces. His “goal is to increase [his] score by continuously and relentlessly invading new spaces”, thus increasing the numbers of artworks in them.
The interactive map on his website shows each of the cities the artist has invaded, as well as the number of waves for each city, the number of artworks displayed in them, and the total score. According to this map, Invader has so far taken over 84 “territories” with over 4,200 “invaders” (or pieces of artwork). In the artist’s own words, “each of these unique pieces become the fragment of a tentacular installation.”
