Today we’d like to introduce you to Ardif.
Hi Ardif, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I studied architecture and started my career as an architect 15 years ago. But during my studies, I became interested in street art because, for me, it was a link between architecture and artistic intervention.
I started looking at the art in the streets of Paris and thinking that I would like to begin my own journey in this urban landscape. I just had to find my style and develop a strong visual identity.
In 2016, I was drawing in a park, just making some sketches and looking for ideas. I don’t really know why, but I started drawing a cat and stopped the animal part halfway through the face. Then I imagined the other half as a symmetrical composition of gears and architecture.
My first Mechanimal was born.
I knew I had found a concept that I loved and that might catch the eye of people walking by.
So I created five or six Mechanimals in the same style and decided to paste my first street art pieces in the streets of Paris under the name ARDIF. Since my drawings took a lot of time to create and putting art in the streets was unauthorized, I chose paste-ups because they allowed me to work quickly and keep creating new pieces.
At the beginning, it was just a game, a way of creating and interacting with my urban surroundings. I wanted to create a kind of urban safari populated by these hybrid animals, half natural and half mechanical.
I started seeing people taking pictures of my work and sharing them on social media. Little by little, more and more street art hunters began to recognize my work.
Then galleries started contacting me. I took part in my first exhibitions and began selling my first pieces. At the same time, I also started getting commissioned projects and murals.
After my first year of putting Mechanimals in the streets, I decided to make it my full-time job.
From there, things accelerated. I developed my style and improved my skills. I was invited to work on bigger projects and started painting large-scale murals in addition to my paste-ups. I also began showing my work in several countries and had the opportunity to collaborate on some amazing projects with institutions and brands.
Today, the adventure continues with new projects, new ideas and new challenges. But I still keep my illegal street art practice alive, putting my Mechanimals in the streets wherever I can.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I faced several challenges throughout my career.
The first one was starting to put my art illegally in the streets. At the beginning, I didn’t really know what kind of risks I was taking, whether with the police or in the neighbourhoods where I was pasting my work. But after two or three sessions, I became more confident. Street art is quite popular in Paris, and there are many areas where you can feel relatively safe when putting art in the streets.
I also remember the moment when I had to choose between continuing my career as an architect and trying to become a full-time artist. It was a tough decision because I knew I couldn’t really do both if I wanted to fully develop my artistic career.
But I had always wanted to be an artist, and I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t give it a try.
Another challenge came when I started painting murals. I had never done anything like that before. Until then, I had only been drawing and painting on a small scale in my studio. So I basically had to learn while working on my first official walls.
But in the end, I’m still learning all the time. Every new project brings new challenges and pushes me to develop my skills. And so far, things have been going pretty well.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work is a hybridization of nature, architecture and mechanisms. The Mechanimals are the embodiment of this central theme. Through them, I explore the balance we need to find between technological progress as human beings and respect for our natural environment.
I find beauty in animals, in their symbolism and their history, but also in their visual qualities: their textures, colours, shapes… Every species is fascinating in its own way, and one lifetime wouldn’t be enough to draw them all.
At the same time, because of my background in architecture, I have always been fascinated by technical drawings and mechanical design. When I create the mechanical part of my work, it becomes an invitation to enter my imaginary world, where you can explore intricate steampunk cities filled with impossible architecture and machinery.
Today, I couldn’t tell you exactly how many Mechanimals I have created, but there are hundreds of them. Over the years, I have also explored human anatomy, mythological figures and characters from pop culture.
But whatever the subject, the principle remains the same: this hybridization between the organic and the mechanical. It has become my artistic signature.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_r_d_i_f/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ardifstreetart/
