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.
In 2013 they created Random(), a networked installation and online exhibition staged at the Aperto gallery in which a program drew from around 40 works submitted by 21 invited artists and displayed four of them at a time, refreshing the selection every ten minutes. Visitors could swap in different works during that window, so the program and the audience jointly replaced the exhibition's curator.In 2022 they won the Prix DJTAL Humain, a prize established in memory of the artist Rémy Piaseczny, for their video À la frontière de la zone (2021).In 2026 their work was included in “SOL! La biennale du territoire #3” at MO.CO. Montpellier, a survey of the École des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier organized with the Musée Fabre.
