Nicolas Floc’h

Photographer and visual artist, born in 1970 in Rennes. Nicolas Floc’h ‘s installations, photographs, films, sculptures and performances question a period of transition in which flow, disappearance and regeneration play an essential role. Over the past ten years, a work focused on the representation of underwater habitats and environments has led to a documentary photographic production linked to global change and to the definition of the concept of underwater landscape: black-and-white photographs (taken in natural light and carbon printed) depicting sea landscapes that are devoid of exoticism and non-anthropocentric. And "watercolors" that re-enact monochrome painting while documenting the oceans' health.
Long-term projects, fueled by experiments, scientific researches and encounters, result in open-ended works rooted in reality, where evolutionary processes are the main theme.

Nicolas Floc’h’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in France and abroad, including at the NOMA (New Orleans) in 2025; the Rencontres d’Arles and the MAAT (Lisbon) in 2024; the FRAC Grand Large (Dunkirk) in 2022; the FRAC Sud, the Fondation Carmignac, and the Villa Noailles in 2020 as part of a three-part solo exhibition organized for Manifesta 13; the Fondation Thalie (Brussels) in 2021; and the MAC VAL (Vitry-sur-Seine) in 2006 and 2015.
His work has also been presented in many leading institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Fondation Ricard (Paris), the SMAK (Ghent), Matucana 100 (Santiago, Chile), the Forum – Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès (Tokyo), the 10th Daegu Photo Biennale (South Korea), the Chengdu Biennale (China), the Biennials of Ventosul and Mercosul (Brazil), and the Setouchi Triennale (Japan).
Nicolas Floc’h was awarded the national photographic commission Flux, une société en mouvement (2018), and the public art commission Invisible (2019), created in collaboration with the Calanques National Park and the Camargo Foundation. For several years, he has been developing an extensive long-term project exploring the color of water, taking him across seas, oceans, and rivers around the world. This project continued in the United States in 2022 during his residency at the newly inaugurated Villa Albertine. In 2025, he becomes the first artist to be hosted in residence on the Tara Ocean Foundation Polar Station in the Arctic, as well as aboard the Alfred Merlin research vessel in Corsica with the Drassm, in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture.
Several monographs have been dedicated to his work, including Glaz, published for the eponymous exhibition at the FRAC Bretagne (2018); Invisible (2020); Deep Sea (2020, featuring a text by Michel Poivert, following an Ifremer expedition into the deep sea); Invisible Parallèles (2022); Initium Maris (2023); and La couleur de l’eau – Tage (2024). He is currently preparing several upcoming publications focusing on the Mississippi River, the watersheds of European rivers, the underwater landscapes along the French coastline, and the ongoing project La couleur de l’eau.
His works are part of numerous public collections, including those of the CNAP, the MAC VAL, the Fonds d’art contemporain – Paris Collections, the FRAC Bretagne, the FRAC Sud, the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, the FRAC Lorraine, the FRAC Grand Large – Hauts-de-France, and the MALI (Lima, Peru).