by MATTHEW HAYS

Jon Erik Johansen says the epiphany hit him very, very suddenly. The 31 year old, who looks something like a young Willem Dafoe, says it happened eight years ago, while he was working his day job as an aircraft maintenance engineer.

“I was working on an airplane, and I looked at it, and I saw the natural beauty in its technical design, in the wings. I thought: ‘Why aren’t there tables like this?’ I saw the beauty in the engineering.”

And so began Johansen’s moonlighting gig, something he’s since developed into a full-time vocation. Johansen buys scrap bits and pieces of retired airplanes by the pound, and then transforms them into gorgeous, sleek furniture. His specialties are coffee tables and end tables; the results are magnificent, über-cool examples of industrial design.

Looking at the work, Johansen’s influences aren’t surprising. “I’m a big fan of Bauhaus, art deco. I think the work should show the facets of the machinery, not hide it. I like to use it as embellishment.”

Also not surprisingly, Johansen cites one of his main inspirations as something that is both surreal and sci-fi. “I love the movie Dune, which really influenced me. The set decoration and design in that film is astonishing. And beyond his films, David Lynch is also an amazing furniture designer.”

A Vancouver native, Johansen never attended art school. “But I’ve painted and sculpted since I was a boy. I used to make robots. I loved working with Lego and clay.” He arrived in Montreal for a one-year aircraft maintenance contract two years ago and “fell in love with the city.” He’s since decided to settle here and move into the furniture design biz full time. Designing furniture out of plane parts for eight years, his materials provide him inspiration constantly. He’s particularly proud of the pieces he’s concocted out of propellers and jet-plane landing gear. “Amazingly,” he says, “a lot of this stuff would just be thrown away if I wasn’t using it.”

Ultimately, Johansen says he’d like to move into doing pure sculpture. In the meantime, he’s going to continue recycling planes into these nifty, ultra-cool pieces of art furniture. “I find this work stimulating and fun. And people do seem to appreciate the final products.” :

Contact info for Johansen available on his Web site, www.jonerikjohansen.com