The ethereal work maps out every friend's house that Miso - real name Stanislava Pinchuk - has walked to in the space of a year and was purchased from her solo show last year.

The 1.2 by 1.6 metre work was painstakingly created with thousands of tiny pin pricks on white paper. The National Gallery of Victoria holds its sister piece.

“It is not a work I can remake,” said Miso, who learned of the theft while receiving treatment in hospital for a broken arm. “The particular content - I can't replicate that. It documents share houses, people have broken up and moved out, that map doesn’t exist anymore.”

The 25-year-old, whose work has also been bought by the National Gallery of Australia, said the thief knew exactly what they were doing and handled the work “like they [knew] something about art”.

They also appeared to have studied the display suite for the Smith & Co mixed residential and commercial development, where the piece hung alongside other works which remained untouched.