French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

Last summer Hookedblog spent some time exploring the French capital, from coffee spots, galleries, local hangouts, and of course some of the Paris street art and murals across the city.

We always enjoy returning to Paris, especially over the summer months trying to avoid using the subway where possible, preferring to walk or using one of the many rental bikes while out street art hunting!

French Street Art

While cycling around central Paris it wasn’t long before we were stopping to photograph some Paris street art. Unlike other cities such as London where you tend to find pockets of street art in certain neighborhoods or streets, Paris is a city where you tend to find street art just about everywhere, as you are never far from an Invader mosaic piece (The french street artist has installed over 1000 pieces of work in Paris alone) in the city you just need to look up!

Stencils, stickers, paste-up art, and one-off posters (which are really popular with French street artists) and not forgetting the large-scale murals it didn't take us long to fill up the 16GB memory card in our camera with images of the Paris Street Art scene!

One paper artwork that caught our attention was a black and white paste-up on Rue Elzevir pasted halfway up a wall. At first glance, we thought it was the work of another French street artist who is based in London, but crossing over to take a photo and seeing the mechanical detailed elements in the piece we realized it was the work of another street artist, one whose work and the name we were not familiar with.


French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

Ardif's London Street Art

We photographed the piece and shared it on our Hookedblog Instagram account later that day while taking a break in the wonderful canal-side cafe, Pavillon des Canaux (great location/coffee/ cakes/salads and probably the most Instagram-friendly place we have ever visited!!).

We asked our followers if anyone recognized the work and was able to help us identify the street artist. It wasn’t long before one of the global street art enthusiasts that follow us recognized the work and artist and were directing us to the Instagram account of French street artist Ardif who had created the paste-up we shared.

It turns out the street artist is based in Paris and we hoped we would catch some more of Ardif’s Paris street art over the following days in the city but unfortunately, the one pictured up top was the only piece we discovered on our travels around the city center.


French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

"Brick Lane Seahorse" on Heneage Street, London by artist Ardif.


It would be a whole year before we would photograph the artists' work again, but on this occasion, the French street artist's ornate mechanimals paste-ups were on the streets of East London.

The artist would appear to have passed through London recently installing a whole series of artworks, mostly black and white with one colour piece pasted up in the Seven Stars Yard car park off Brick Lane, London.

Pictured below are the London street art pieces we have discovered down to date, there are still one or two we know we have missed, so should you know the locations please do share them with us in the comments section at the bottom.

French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

Hermit Crab Mechanimal by French Street Artist Ardif located on Brick Lane, London.

French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

"Swordfish Mechanimal under the brick sea. . " by street artist Ardif located in the Seven Stars Yard car park just off Brick Lane, London. This was one of the only coloured works by the artist we found, the other works were all black and white.

French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney


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French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

This street-level Hedgehog mechanimal by French street artist Ardif can be found on Princelet Street, London.

French street artist Ardif's Ornate Mechanimals in London. Photo ©Hookedblog / Mark Rigney

The piece above is located on the back of an electric box on Bacon Street, off Brick Lane in London.

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