Critical Review
Prisoners is a signed giclée print produced by the French street artist Invader in 2007. The print comes in an edition size of 100 and shows three of the ghosts from the popular arcade game, Pac-Man. Inky, Blinky and Clyde appear to be trapped in a prison and the ghosts are depicted looking helplessly at the walls of their cage.
The print is part of Invader’s Hello My Game Is collection. Invader worked on this collection for a decade, starting it in 2007. Prisoners is one of the earliest prints from the renowned collection. The name of the collection is a pun on the gaming tag: ‘Hello My Name is …’ and the collection features a variety of different gaming subjects, all of which employ the 8-bit register that is commonly associated with arcade games. In January 2017, Invader held a solo exhibition at the Musée en Herbe in Paris in which the artist showcased works from the Hello My Game Is collection. The exhibition was aimed at families and engaging children with art.
Invader rose to fame in the 1990s when he took to the streets of Paris, adorning them with popular arcade characters like Pac-Man ghosts and Space Invaders. Since the 90s, Invader has traveled all over the world, decorating the streets of a variety of cities from Los Angeles to Kathmandu.
