Nicolas Nicolini & Mathias Schech

Nicolas Nicolini was born in Marseilles in 1985 and Mathias Schech was born in Strasbourg in 1988. They have met at the Beaux-Arts School in Marseilles during they studies, and later they have been part of the French-Korean artists collective Yasseemecq (Berlin).

Nicolas Nicolini works after photographs and is interested in light and an almost abstract construction of space, whereas Mathias Schech is interested in history (and histories). They form an artistic duo complementing each other and they travel very often to Berlin where they work and share ideas. When asked about what was the thing that taught them most during their training, they both answer, without hesitation: "freedom".

This freedom can be found in their series "Tribu" (Tribe): "the notion of tribe is so vast that we can afford to blow it up" say the artists of their work and universe.

Their paastel creations strenghten their desire to create a "third person" that comes from the expression and the deleting of their personalities. None of them have used pastel before their collaboration, and this technique offers them a perfect, neutral material that they can model to fit their style. Their work is composed of photographic images found by chance online. They project them on paper and recompose them in a neutral style, getting rid of their aesthetic habits, so that the viewer cannot see anytrace of their personal styles.