New York City’s most loathed and celebrated vermin are preserved for posterity in a series of new pothole mosaics by artist Jim Bachor. Inspired by the legendary grit of the city and the bottom-feeding inhabitants that plague its streets, the Vermin of New York series consists of classically styled mosaics depicting dead rats and pigeons, a cockroach and a President. Oh, and Bachor threw in a bouquet of flowers for a little color.

Vermin of New York is just the latest of twelve pothole mosaic series, many of which were installed in Chicago. Interestingly, though most of his pieces have been left as-is (he’s doing a public service, after all, filling the potholes for free), the New York City transportation department removed the portrait of Donald Trump (along with the bouquet and the cockroach.) The others seem to still be in place.

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Bachor uses the same methods, tools and materials as the archaic craftspeople responsible for mosaics that have persevered through thousands of years of rapidly changing human civilizations. The artist says he enjoys the process of connecting this ancient art to modern-day subjects.

“Trying to leave your mark in this world fascinates me. Ancient history fascinates me. Volunteering to work on an archaeological dig in Pompeii helped merge these two interests into my art. In the ancient world, mosaics were used to capture images of everyday life.”

“These colorful pieces of stone or glass set in mortar were the photographs of empires long past. Marble and glass do not fade. Mortar is mortar. An ancient mosaic looks exactly as intended by the artist who produced it over two millennia ago. What else can claim that kind of staying power? I find this idea simply amazing.”

A French street artist known only as ‘Invader’ just got done dropping over a dozen new mosaic tile installations all over Los Angeles while in town for the group show Beyond the Streets. The best one might just be a portrait of The Dude himself, the eponymous figure from the cult film The Big Lebowski, standing outside a bowling alley with a cocktail in hand. Others are modeled after characters from the 8-bit video game Space Invaders, which the artist has left in over 30 countries over the past two decades.

Invader chooses his target cities, scopes out the locations for his installations in advance and preps them as much as possible before putting them up. The oldest ones can be found in Paris, but if you want an idea of just how prolific Invader has been over the years, check out the interactive map on his website.

The mosaics are relatively small and often quite discreet, occasionally blending into the color schemes of their environments. He doesn’t typically get permission to put them up, but they’re so charming, it’s easy to see why they can remain in place for so long. Invader’s choices for placement have sometimes been controversial, however – in January 2018, he came under fire for installing a few in sacred Buddhist temples of Bhutan. The government ultimately removed them.

Scope the whole gallery of recent Los Angeles pieces, or head over to Invader’s Instagram to keep up with the works as they’re completed.

Urban street artist Invader has installed tile mosaics modeled after Space Invaders 8-bit video game characters in over 30 countries over the past 20 years.

Although he prefers to remain incognito like Banksy and many other street artists, Invader has a known personal history aside from his art. Born in France in 1969, he graduated from the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris though one wonders what his instructors think of his trademark works.

Classical training aside, Invader’s main artistic focus relates to the 8-bit graphic style of visual displays common to the first wave of electronic video games from the late 1970s. His choice of “Invader” as an artistic nom de plume reflects the influence of Space Invaders, one of the first shooter-style video games, released in 1978. The images above, captured by Flickr member Philosofia in Rome in June of 2011, are typical of the artist’s style and preferred placement in public urban settings easily visible but less than accessible.

We’ll Always Have Paris

Invader is not your typical tag & go, fly-by-night graffiti artist though many of his works ARE installed in the dead of night so as to avoid traffic and police. Instead, Invader typically plots his so-called “Invasions” of a chosen city far in advance, scouting out locations for his mosaics and semi-completing the works before he goes out to install them.

The artist’s earliest mosaics began appearing in Paris about 25 years ago. The examples above come courtesy of Flickr members Wally Gobetz (wallyg), Nelson Minar, and Ferdinand Feys.

High Plain Invaders

As time went by and word of Invader’s distinctive works spread, a black market for his pieces sprang up. Naturally, the artist disapproved of this – his works were and are designed to be not-for-profit installations.

In response to a rash of thefts and subsequent resales, Invader has made efforts to make his work more complex (and therefore more difficult to remove) and he’s also been placing them in higher, less accessible locations. The above images were snapped by Flickr members Allison Meier (allisonmeier), KnitSpirit, and victorillen in 2009, 2011 and 2009, respectively.

Miles Of Tiles

In June of 2011, Invader celebrated the installation of his 1,000th work in Paris alone. Over his “career” to that point, he had created 2,692 space invader style mosaics in 77 cities using approximately 1.5 million ceramic tiles. The mosaic above dates from February of 2013 and was snapped by Flickr member sinkdd in Tokyo, Japan’s famously trendy Harajuku shopping district.

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8 Bitten Space Invaders Street Art Tells Tile Tales

A 361-foot tunnel connecting the historic city center of Amsterdam to its revitalized industrial waterfront district symbolically links past and present with a stunning mural made up of 80,000 tiles. Design firm Benthem Crouwell used iconic Delft blue tiles to paint a picture of a fleet of ships on treacherous seas, taking inspiration from 18th century Rotterdam tile painter Cornelis Boumeester.

Stretching the entire length of the Cuyperspassage tunnel, which is open only to pedestrians and cyclists, the mural bears a striking resemblance to Boumeester’s depiction of the Warship Rotterdam and Herring Fleet, completed in 1725.

This traditional view of the Netherlands starts to shift and change the further you walk or bike into the tunnel. The illustrative style starts to get pixelated about halfway through, growing more and more abstract until it’s simply an arrangement of blue-hued tiles.

It’s a beautiful way to symbolize the growth and change the city has experienced over the past few centuries, with the potential to become as large a part of the nation’s cultural and artistic identity as the work that inspired it.

An uniquely elegant solution to a dirty everyday problem, these gorgeous handcrafted tile mosaics are turning unfilled potholes back into functional pieces of city street surface all over Chicago.

This time with an emphasis on beautification, mosaic maker Jim Bachor is back at it again. He is somewhat widely known in the area for using Chicago flags and and other city-themed infill to patch problematic holes in the urban fabric previously.

More on the artist’s background and inspiration: “Volunteering to work on an archaeological dig in Pompeii helped merge these two interests in to my art. In the ancient world, mosaics were used to capture images of everyday life. These colorful pieces of stone or glass set in mortar were the photographs of empires long past. Marble and glass do not fade. Mortar is mortar. An ancient mosaic looks exactly as intended by the artist who produced it over two millennia ago. What else can claim that kind of staying power? I find this idea simply amazing.”

In part, his work on the streets aims to draw attention to the 500,000+ potholes that remain unfixed at any given time, in part a byproduct of the harsh temperature shifts from winter to summer and back again (or as is said in the Midwest: ‘winter and road repair’ seasons).

“Using the same materials, tools and methods of the archaic craftsmen, I create mosaics that speak of modern things in an ancient voice. My work locks into mortar unexpected concepts drawn from the present … it surprises the viewer while challenging long-held notions of what a mosaic should be. Like low-tech pixels, hundreds if not thousands of tiny, hand-cut pieces of Italian glass and marble comprise my work.”