Mathieu LUCAS
Born in 1985, lives and works in Montpellier (FR)
Artistic Approach
Born in 1985 in Nantes, Mathieu Lucas studied fine art at the University of Rennes. Although admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, he chose not to enrol there, opting instead to pursue a professional career in graphic and visual arts at the Brassart School. Drawing and spray-painting form the basis of his artistic practice, which he is currently developing through a resolutely cross-disciplinary approach.
Based in Montpellier for the past ten years or so, Mathieu Lucas creates three-dimensional works in which sculpture, painting and staging converge. His works create a tension between formal precision and the harshness of the situations depicted, using a deliberately minimalist visual vocabulary. At the heart of his practice lies a reflection on the Anthropocene era. Through the interplay of scale and miniaturisation, the artist presents bird’s-eye-view landscapes in which human activity appears as a factor in the transformation, or even disruption, of living systems. The reduction in scale acts as a revelation: it highlights the fragility of ecosystems and the far-reaching impact of human actions on the environment.
Global warming, ocean pollution and dystopian visions form the backdrop to these frozen scenes, often imbued with a subtle sarcasm. The world is presented here as a state of limbo, marked by the lingering traces of human intervention.
His work has been exhibited in Brussels, Hamburg, Paris, Marseille and Montpellier, and in institutional settings such as the FRAC Occitanie (Musée dans la rue), the Centre d’Art Pierresvives in Montpellier (X, Y, Z) and the Futurium – Museum of the Future in Berlin (Futures of Democracy).