Invader Book

French artist Invader stages art “invasions” in cities around the world. He installs pixelated pieces inspired by 8-bit arcade video game characters on the walls of buildings in busy urban areas. Many of these mosaics depict the iconic aliens from the 1978 game Space Invaders, but Invader also uses characters from games like Super Mario Bros. and Pac-Man. He describes his work as contemporary street art. Though known for his public art, Invader also makes smaller-scale abstract prints and tile kits.

The real name of the man behind the Invader persona is purported to be Franck Slama. However, he keeps his identity private and his face a secret, wearing a mask in public and working under the cloak of night. Invader told The Talks magazine that not even his parents know about his life as a mosaicist — they think he works in the construction industry as a tiler.

Born in Paris in 1969, Invader grew up playing the ‘70s and ‘80s video games he now emulates in tile. He went on to graduate from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is believed to have begun tagging the streets of his native city with urban artist Zevs at the end of the 1990s. In 1998, he branched out on his own with the “Space Invaders” project. 

Invader chose 8-bit characters as the subject of his work because he sees them as the icons of our digital world. He seeks not only to free the characters from their video games but also to liberate art itself from museums and institutions. Each "invasion" begins by scouting the city and finding the perfect spots for anywhere from 20 to 50 of his installations. Invader's creations have appeared in 79 cities in 20 different countries.

While committed to bringing art to the streets, Invader has shown his street art at museums and galleries around the globe. His solo exhibitions include Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, Citylights Gallery in Melbourne, Lazarides Gallery in London, PMQ in Hong Kong and Mima Museum in Brussels. His work is also immensely popular at art auctions and sells for tens of thousands of dollars.

On 1stDibs, find authentic Invader prints, mixed media works and other art.

Street art is a style created for city walls, subway trains and other public spaces. Sometimes it is commissioned, yet most often it is an individual statement of defiant free expression. Although mostly an urban style, street art can be found all over the world, including JR’s pasted portraits on the separation wall in Palestine, Invader’s playful ceramic tile mosaics in Paris and the provocative stencil and spray-paint works by Banksy in London.

The Philadelphia-based Cornbread — aka Darryl McCray — is considered the first modern graffiti artist. He began tagging his name around the city in the 1960s. Graffiti art later flourished in New York City in the 1970s. There, young artists used spray paint and markers to create tags and large-scale graphic works, with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring both developing their distinctive styles through the graffiti scene, which would evolve into street art. Artists such as Tracy 168 and Lady Pink pioneered the Wild Style of complex graffiti writing in the 1980s, pushing the movement forward.

Because of its unsanctioned, improvisational and frequently covert nature, street art involves a range of techniques and aesthetics. Some street artists use quick and effective stenciling, whereas others wheat-paste posters, commandeer video projectors or freehand draw elaborate illustrations and murals. Shepard Fairey made his mark with street art stickers before designing the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

While the origins of street art are rooted in a strictly noncommercial creative act that confronted political issues, sexuality and more for a general audience of passersby, the art form has moved inside the galleries over the years. Today, just as Basquiat and Haring took their works from Manhattan’s Lower East Side alleyways into Soho galleries, artists including KAWS, Barry McGee and Osgemeos are in demand with collectors of fine art.

Find a collection of street art paintings, sculptures, prints and multiples and more on 1stDibs.