Nicolas Lebeau

Image from “Would u wear my eyezz” project by Nicolas Lebeau

Biography

Instagram: @laconieauleb

Questioning the value, nature and meaning of images today, Nicolas Lebeau subverts the photographic medium to create spaces of intimate, vegetative resistance between the virtual and the material. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts de Paris-Cergy (France) in 2024, he's currently pursuing an MFA at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (Switzerland). His work is regularly the subject of publications and solo and group exhibitions in France, notably at the Galerie Mennour for the second Mennour Emergence Prize, the Centre d'art Ygrec, the Tour Orion, the Fondation Francès and the Grande Halle de La Villette for 100% L'EXPO, an event dedicated to young contemporary creation.

The project

Blood-stained red letters tagged on a vandalized bus shelter read “Vivre libre ou mourir” [Live free or die]. A man shields his face from a tear gas canister, another, blindfolded, wears a military uniform. Hooded or masked, the figures that inhabit Nicolas Lebeau’s compositions seek to break free, to desert the frame in order to preserve their anonymity and escape data tracking. His fragmented mosaics reveal only part of the overall picture. The source of the referenced scenes is not essential: drawn from the messaging application Telegram or from media coverage of current conflicts and protests around the world, the images he sets out to reappropriate outline a troubled world.

His practice is rooted in the art of diversion—physical, in part, through the manipulation of the tools he uses to print his compositions and his direct intervention in the source files; and conceptual, through the choice of pre-existing overlapping images. This multitude of sources results in the dialogue or confrontation of situated and highly political contexts. Deprived of all reference and context of origin, these images contribute to the creation of a global, anonymous archive of resistance. Without knowing precisely what they oppose, his assemblages orchestrate the beginnings of an uprising. Never explicit, violence and conflict are only hinted at. Yet an atmosphere tinged with rebellion emerges.

Image from “Would u wear my eyezz” project by Nicolas Lebeau

Image from “Would u wear my eyezz” project by Nicolas Lebeau

The layering of his compositions makes any totalizing reading impossible. The pixelation or extreme pigmentation of the source files saturates the compositions with vivid and dissonant colors, like a dare to defy reality or a call to action. The jagged cuts create a discordant rhythm reminiscent of a poor signal’s faulty reception. If absurd fictions and conspiracy theories are daily invented to instrumentalize thought through images, why not use these same tools towards a more engaging purpose? At a time when global conflicts are experienced live through increasingly predatory technologies, Lebeau’s practice confronts us with the state of anesthesia and general drowsiness to which we are subjected—attempting a poetic and collective awakening at the dawn of a brighter future.