Ade Hanft makes art that moves, literally. Working with looping animations distributed across the surfaces of a city through clear stickers, receipts, and projections, this is a practice built on surprise, process, and the quiet strangeness of placing something unexpected in the world. There are no galleries to wait for, no institutional gatekeepers. Just a bike, an early Saturday morning, and an envelope of stickers. What Ade Hanft has built from these modest materials is a body of work that rewards both the casual scroll and the deeper look, images that loop endlessly, carrying within that loop something worth sitting with.

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Can you take us through the evolution of an artwork, from that first spark of inspiration to the finished piece?

I have an assortment of looping animations that I cycle through in my work. I like finding ways to force these videos out into the world in strange and unlikely places. Sometimes I print them on receipts. Sometimes I use projectors. My favorite method is making clear stickers that I put around town, letting the background textures of the city shine through them. 

I prepare an envelope filled with stickers. Each sticker will become a frame of animation. I wake up early on Saturday mornings because there are fewer people to be confused by my activities. I get on my bike and ride to a place that I suspect might have interesting textures.  I walk around in search of places to apply my stickers. Eventually, I’ve distributed and photographed all my stickers and I head home. I review my photos, align them, and combine them into an animation that lasts a little over a second. It’s only at this point, when I hit play for the first time that I know if what I’ve created is good. It’s a surprise every time, and the uncertainty is part of what keeps me coming back to this process.

How important is it for viewers to understand the intended message of your work? Does ambiguity add value, or do you seek clarity in your expression?

My work is competing in the feeds of Instagram, TikTok, and Substack. These platforms reward instant gratification so my work hits at that level first. But if I do it right, there are subsets of people whose curiosity lets them dig deeper. They wonder why I chose balloons or receipts or shipping labels to put my art on. Maybe they think about the symbolism of my endless loops, realizing that that dancer will be eternally trapped in that spin. The backflips never end. The runner never gets a break. The receipts just keep piling up. I don’t need to hammer these themes, it’s better when people come to them on their own.

Do you have any rituals or habits that help you enter a creative state of flow?

I try to maintain several projects at the same time. Most ideas inevitably hit a wall and get stalled. Instead of getting discouraged I just move to another idea and let my subconscious work on the stuck project. Later when I come back to the “stuck” ideas with fresh eyes and new ideas I can usually move them forward. The important thing is to keep moving. If you have several in-progress projects going at the same time, getting into flow is simplified because you can lean into whichever project is speaking to you at any given time. 

Do you believe the ‘mad artist’ stereotype still holds weight, or is creativity more grounded than we think?

There’s a definition of magic where Teller says “Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” As artists we are obsessed with things that normal people can’t relate to. When you operate outside the expectations of how reasonable people spend their time, you are going to be called crazy. And the deeper you go, the better you get at your craft, the harder it will be for normies to grok what you’re doing. I’d say if people aren’t a little baffled by what you’re doing you probably aren’t being as creative as you could be.  

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly infiltrating creative fields. Do you see artificial intelligence as a threat, a tool, or a collaborator in the art world?

Personally I’m really benefiting from the anti-AI backlash. My work is so obviously human that when people see my work they are eager to praise a real person. I have a “never AI” disclaimer on my profiles to make it clear I am not taking any shortcuts. 

But yes, AI is a threat. It is going to rob us of some really great artists who are seduced by the simplicity of prompting images. They might have to learn the hard way that the “help” an AI gives you isn’t worth the lost ownership of your work. Even if AI contributes a small percentage of your work, it will get all the credit. People hate the slop and if they smell it on you, they won’t come back. 

Can you pinpoint a single moment in your life when you realized art was not just a passion but your purpose?

I remember walking around the St. Louis art museum as a young boy in awe of the enormous paintings. I turned a corner and there was a smaller canvas covered in Campbell’s Soup cans. As I stood there I went through stages of shock, outrage, understanding, and appreciation. That’s the moment when I realized art was more than just a skill for generating pretty pictures. I didn’t know who Andy Warhol was but that painting unlocked a desire to really study art and the creative process.

How do you reignite creativity during those inevitable periods of self-doubt or stagnation?

I went through a tough phase where I wasn’t getting the attention I thought my art deserved. I was mad, disappointed, and questioning whether I wanted to keep going. The thing that got me out of the spiral was a realization that everything I was upset about was out of my control. I learned how to be fulfilled purely by the parts of my art that were within my control: what I make, how I talk about it, when it is released. After it is released into the world I don’t need any external validation or rewards from my creations. Anything good is icing on the cake. There’s an invocation that I use to keep my mind anchored.  It says, “Grant me another day that I may listen for the verse that has yet to be written. I am lost, uncertain, and unequipped for creation. I don’t feel worthy to be the muse’s vessel, yet I ask that my reserves be refilled one more time.

Grant me one new idea, even the tiniest grain upon which I can summon the energy needed to scale the rocky faces of resistance. Should I find a way through the hidden snares, allow my work to live a life of its own. Let it break every mold that attempts to restrain it, let it flow freely to fill whatever shape it touches. Guide it as it searches for the souls it yearns to touch.” I recite this when I get anxious about things outside my control. It reminds me why I’m doing the work. The work is the reward.

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What comes through most clearly in this conversation is a practice grounded in discipline, curiosity, and a hard-won sense of what can and cannot be controlled. Ade Hanft has found a way to make the uncertainty of the process itself into a source of momentum, keeping multiple projects alive at once, returning to stuck ideas with fresh eyes, releasing work into the world without clinging to what it does there. The invocation recited during difficult periods says it plainly: the work is the reward. That is not a small thing to know about oneself, and it shows in the work.