Paris, France —These are powerful paintings. These are rare art works devoted to the environmental disasters on our planet Earth and in its seas and which are in many ways more effective and evocative than photographs. Artist, environmentalist, scientist, environmental engineer Nicole King brings us highly original paintings bolstered by her keen knowledge of the environment and her extensive field work as an expert in water and pollution. She has been painting for over two decades now, producing a large body of work revolving around ecology, works that are highly aesthetic, peopled with animals, many of them endangered species, and raising awareness about what is happening to our world. 

She is one of the leading ecological artists of her generation and the vivid world played out in her activist art works intrigue and educate at the same time. Les grues & La baleine (the cranes and the whale) is a vivid depiction of oil drilling platforms with a whale sinking into petroleum filled waters, evoking the sick whales that wash up all too often on our shores. It is her use of color that stands out immediately. The highly potent painting of an albatross, its stomach filled with the garbage — much of it plastic — that has accumulated in our seas is heart wrenching and yet perfectly executed. Caretta evokes the two ecological phases of a turtle, one swimming, the other seemingly choking. Marine turtles are highly vulnerable to the plastic and fishing nets and general pollution found in our seas.  

The eco artist puts her knowledge and skills in the service of education as well. She founded the workshop of art and ecology, l’Eco- école de Nicole, Nicole’s Ecological School, in Marly-le-Roi in the greater Paris region for high school students. A member of the artist’s association the Salon d’automne de Paris, which hosts one of the most prestigious art fairs in the French capital, she was invited to exhibit 35 of her works at the 2021 World Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) in Marseilles. Her works were recently honored in an exceptional exhibition, which wound up on January 21st, in the town hall of the 8th arrondissement of Paris which brought together some 100 of her crusading works. To see Nicole King’s artwork and find out more about her go to: https://www.nicoleking.fr/en/

Trish Valicenti special to The Gourmet Gazette