Space Invader street art

Since wonder | wander | women first moved to London, we found and loved the cheeky street art of French guerrilla artist Invader. His tile artworks imitating 8-bit pixel art are dotted around this city, as well as several European cities we happened to visit.

Invader gets his name from the video game Space Invaders, an 8-bit game popular in the 1980s. Most of his art features the little bug-like alien ships that populated the Space Invaders game, with little variations such as eyes or mandibles.

Other artworks reference different games from the same era and in the same classic pixel style, like Pac-Man or Super Mario. Others reference cartoons like the Smurfs or Hanna-Barbera's Hong Kong Phooey.

Even avowed Invader fans like us don't spot his artwork right away. Instead we glimpse it as we travel through a city, and if we're lucky we can catch a picture of it. His little critters tend to lurk on street corners, around the name signs.

We've spotted his art on walks home toward a famous museum, or managed to catch it through the rain-streaked windows of our taxi. These days we always keep an eye out while on vacation, but we've even had a friendly British Invader pop up near our neighbourhood!

Although Invader is France-based and works most often around Paris, he has also installed artworks in the UK, Italy, Germany and Asian cities like Hong Kong and Bangkok. He calls these visits "Invasions", but local residents often welcome these tiled murals.

Occasionally someone tries to destroy or remove the mosaics. City councils don't always share the local pride in being visited by a famous artist - Hong Kong residents protested against the government's attempted removal of several Invader pieces. Collectors also try to take the street art for private collections or to sell - Invader's art when sold in galleries can fetch up to six figures.

Luckily the artist prepares well. On his website he states that the tiles are glued down usually with cement but also with some adhesives he creates himself, and sometimes he sets more fragile tiles that are destroyed when someone tries to steal the art. It's a way of making sure his street art is available to anyone who happens upon it.

At heart though, Invader's art is like a game played by the artist with thousands of fans worldwide. It's truly art for art's sake: cheeky, interactive, surprising and a little risky. Long may he invade.