Nico Williams

Nico Williams, ᐅᑌᒥᐣ (b. 1989) is a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation (Anishinaabe), currently living and working in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. In 2021, he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Concordia University. He has a multidisciplinary and, often collaborative, practice that is centred around sculptural beadwork. Williams is active within the urban Indigenous Montréal Arts community and a member of the Contemporary Geometric Beadwork research team. He has taught workshops at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the McCord Stewart Museum, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and the University of Toronto.

In 2021, he was awarded the prestigious Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. His work has been shown internationally and across Canada, including at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2023), the MacKenzie Art Gallery (2022), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2021), Musée des beaux-arts Montréal (2019), PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art (2023), and the recent group exhibition, Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, at the Hessel Museum of Art.

Williams’ practice has been featured by National Geographic (2018) and CBC (2021) and is housed in prominent public collections, including Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Archives Nationales du Québec, the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, and the Royal Bank of Canada Art Collection. His first public sculpture, Monument to the Brave, was commissioned in 2020 by the Sick Kids Foundation.

His work has been supported by the Canada Council, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec Impetus Grant, The Ontario Arts Council and the Fluevog Artist Grant.