Invader mosaic (MLB_02), Victorian Arts Centre 2005

Summary

This image was created by Lachlan MacDowall and displayed using a lightbox in the 2022 City Gallery exhibition 'Off the Grid: Invader and Melbourne Street Art in the early 2000s.' The text below is written by the exhibition curator, Lachlan MacDowall.

"In June 2002, an anonymous French street artist known as 'Invader' visited Melbourne and installed more than two dozen small tile mosaics across the city. Alongside Paris and Los Angeles, Melbourne was amongst the first cities in which Invader installed his artworks. The designs referencing the pixelated images of 1970s video games. Constructed using everyday house tiles, the artworks have proved both an enduring material and aesthetic device. Since visiting Melbourne, Invader has placed more than 4000 mosaics in 80 cities worldwide, as street art has evolved from lively local art scenes into an international art movement. This pictured tile mosaic is now in the City of Melbourne Art and Heritage collection, having been cut intact from a bluestone retaining wall with heavy machinery to preserve it during demolition works as part of the Melbourne Arts Centre renovation in 2010. Scattered from Fitzroy to Prahran, about half of Invader’s original mosaics remain intact and visible on Melbourne’s streets." - Lachlan MacDowall, 2024