Éric Nado

Since 1999, Éric Nado has been exploring urban relics, collecting industrial pieces, and making contemporary sculptures. His artwork pays tribute to a collective industrial past and exudes and inspires, a sense of nostalgia. A Bachelor of Philosophy and of Visual Arts, Éric Nado started his career in Montreal, Canada and was one of the first tenants and administrators of the Lézarts Coop, the city's first visual arts housing, and workshop cooperative, before moving his family and workshop to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, in 2007. Nado is widely recognized by his peers and is notably featured amongst the artists accredited by the Quebec Ministry of Culture's Integration of Arts and Architecture Program since 2010 - Commonly known as the 1% project.

The material world was built, first and foremost: one of the roles art can take is of reinterpreting its forms and functions. Through sculpture-assemblage, Éric Nado transforms and reorganizes certain objects to reveal other possibilities through their forms or intended functions. Using iconic metal objects such as typewriters and sewing machines, Nado materializes concepts such as labor and memory. Filled with nostalgia, the objects he transforms into sculptures tell compelling stories.

Reconstructive Series

Typewriter Guns

Olivetti, Underwood and other vintage brands of typewriting machines are transformed into evocative Typewriter Guns by reassembling every piece of the original machines. The series triggers the idea that words are stronger than arms and shape history.

The Seamstresses

In dissecting and rebuilding 1865 to 1950 Singer and other-vintage-brand Sewing Machines made of embellished cast iron or colorful metal pieces, Nado pays homage to feminism in the working class. Seamstresses convey a sense of nostalgia woven in our common collective history.