For the past few months I have been admiring an assortment of pixilated street art installations in the various cities that I have visited throughout France and Europe. Its a topic that I talk about on my blog quite often in fact.
Though I initially believed that these were the works of a single street artist named Invader, I have recently realized that they are actually the works of at least three different artists - Invader, Mifamosa, and Le Geek.
I had started to suspect that the different pieces of art that I was seeing were not all done by the same artist since many of them didn't seem to have a consistent look and feel about them. However, I wasn't aware of just how many artists out there were doing pixilated tile mosaics. It wasn't until I began seeing pieces in cities that were not listed on Invaders world map that I knew for certain that there were others.
Now that I know, it is actually quite obvious when looking at them who's work belongs to whom. But that's hindsight bias for you I suppose.
Mifamosa
Mifamosa is one of the French street artists whos work I had been admiring. Like Invader, they specialize in pixilated tile mosaics, but also add their own unique flare to make them interesting. They started their work in the city of Orleans France and have since moved on to other cities throughout the country.
The fairy and peacock in the images above were spotted in the city of Lille and are among the prettiest of all the installations I have seen by the artist.
Mifamosa posts their work above street signs and typically (if not always) posts images that relate to the name of the street itself. Clever or perhaps punny. My wife likes this artist quite a bit and actually prefers their work above the others.
I have noticed that Mifamosa's work can also be identified by three circular tiles that accompany each installation and which act as a sort of signature for the artist. It is probably the easiest way to tell that the work is definitely theirs. Smart, I think.
Many of the pieces by the artist are really quite stunning, though some can be a bit drab and boring. I found this to be the case in the city of Orleans especially. There I spotted at least 12 pieces but I only really cared to take photos of a few of them. After a while the idea of putting an image above a street sign with the same name became a little bit monotonous for me.
For instance, on the street of snakes was an image of a snake, on English street there were two tea cups and on the main shopping street in the city was a shopping cart. You get the idea. This went on for quite some time until eventually it all became a bit cheesy or tacky for me overall.
From that point on I only started taking photos of the images that I really liked.
Le Geek
Le Geek is another pixilated street artist who's work I had previously mistaken for that of Invaders. In fact their work is probably the most similar to Invaders overall. They often create images that relate to old style video games like super Mario Brothers. In lyon I spotted several of these characters. They also create images of characters from movies and various cartoons.
I happen to like the theme of Le Geeks work quite a bit and think that some of the installations are pretty cool.
The last image was seen in the city of Nancy France and though I am not certain who the artist is for sure I suspect that it is the work of Le Geek. I know that it was not created by Invader and it does not have the three round tiles of Mifamosa's signature. Either way though, I think its a pretty neat image despite not knowing who its supposed to be.
Any guesses?