Nicolas Lebrun (b. 1985) makes systematic, rule-based art that explores how humans perceive space and depth on a flat surface. Each project runs as a system: a starting state and a set process that gradually transforms it into a final composition, taking form as drawings, installations, websites or hybrids of the three.
Lebrun was born in Carpentras, France, and studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, graduating with honors in 2009 and with distinction in 2011. They have lived and worked in Montpellier since their studies. Between 2009 and 2015 they made interactive installations that questioned the relationship between an artwork and its viewer, before shifting toward systems built on strict, self-imposed rules they call protocols. They align this approach with the artist François Morellet, whose own description of aiming to “reduce my arbitrary decisions to a minimum” closes their artist statement.
