Nando - Art Shape Painter

My first encounter with Nando's work came after a job that ELLE magazine commissioned me to cover the artist's exhibition at the Modern Mix Gallery in Toulouse in December 2007. As I went through his body of work created with the pastel technique, I was discovering the applied work of a young artist whose sensitive line, attuned to the beauty of silhouettes, ran counter to the illustrated trends of the moment. Writing about an artist's achievements is a difficult task, all the more so since I never had the opportunity to meet the author 'physically'. However, I found in the originality of his canvases, mixed with the precision of the curves and the harmonious union of colours, a sufficiently rich material to write about his work.

Later, after explaining the different stages of his artistic career, Nando offered me some useful keys to analyse and understand his work. Also, his life experiences in different countries, his instinctive approach to the pastel technique since adolescence, as well as his rejection of copying and copies of other creators, should be read as so many constituent parts of his graphic puzzles. He admits that each of his paintings conceals a part of his past and present emotions, but claims that there is no precise theme or link between them. Thus, he paints according to his mood, and makes colour the privileged witness of his sentimental variations. We are spectators of this exercise, but we read chance into the rosettes and oblique shapes, a world of its own.

Jean-Luc Feixa – June 2009, independent journalist – contributor to ELLE magazine, Intramuros monthly...

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