Ardif

When walking the streets of Paris, one could easily get lost, among old cafes, endless shop windows and, oh, art – in galleries, museums, but also on buildings, traffic poles, alley pavements. In fact, the next time you take a stroll in the French capital, make sure you look up and around more closely, as you are likely to come across paste-ups of animal hybrids, half “regular” and half completely mechanic. These intrinsic works belong to a young French artist going by the name Ardif, whose passion and curiosity reflect in an extraordinary ability to present detail. Working primarily on the street, he depicts animals from almost all families, dedicating as much attention to their actual appearance as he is to the complex mechanisms that make up the rest of them. But apart from the outdoor, Ardif is also present within gallery and fair walls, in particular those of Pretty Portal and, subsequently, the Urban Art Fair in Paris, where the Düsseldorf gallery exhibited his works on paper. It is there I met the artist, on the occasion of his first ever print signing. Through a short, but sweet conversation, he reveals what inspires him, what the message of his art his, and where we can find his creations next.