Article published in the newspaper L’Est Eclair on December 4, 2025, presenting Nicole King’s exhibition at the Espace Didier-Bienaimé in the Chapelle Saint-Luc:
When science and art come together: artist Nicole King, who has had an unusual career path, is exhibiting her paintings at the Espace Didier-Bienaimé until December 18.
Nicole King is an artist with an atypical background, who was able to exhibit her paintings at the Espace Didier-Bienaimé thanks to the cooperative society Les Passeurs de texte, which submitted a request to the municipality on her behalf.
Scientific experience in the service of art
At the exhibition opening on Tuesday, December 2, Nicole King passionately explained her approach and the genesis of her paintings, which are so luminous despite the alarming message she wants to convey. The destruction of ecosystems prompted her to become an environmental engineer and water and pollution expert for the oil industry, with assignments in India, Tierra del Fuego, the North Sea, and Borneo. There, she discovered a zooplankton copepod crustacean that bears her name, Acartiella nicolae.
After working for 17 years as an engineer, she became involved in ecological art and built up a collection of images revealing the extent of the environmental disasters of our time. For the past seven years, she has been developing a teaching method based on recycled art. Nicole King uses oil paint mixed with mixed media techniques, and her artistic research, which combines the beauty of art and nature, helps to raise awareness of the tensions of our time.
For the artist, nature disfigured by industrial activities can no longer be painted as before. To avoid any paradox, she chooses to represent technology in her images using photography combined with painting.
Nicole King also co-wrote “Pour une eau vivante” (For Living Water) with Christian Noorbergen, which received the “Année de la mer-La mer en commun” (Year of the Sea-The Sea in Common) label.
