Skip to content

PAUL VILLINSKI

Glidepath

April 23 – May 31, 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI Diaspora, 2009

PAUL VILLINSKI
Diaspora, 2009
site specific installation
vinyl records, steel wire, phonograph, record covers
99 x 168 x 9 inches
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Boxed Birds, 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
Boxed Birds, 2010
site specific installation
vinyl records and steel wire
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Yes, 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
Yes, 2010
aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, finnish plywood, latex, Flashe
44 x 70 x 7.25 inches 
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Idyll, 2011

PAUL VILLINSKI
Idyll, 2011
french easel, aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, flashe
70 x 35.5 x 45.5 inches
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI On Final (for St. Ex), 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
On Final (for St. Ex), 2010
aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, balsa, Flashe
47 x 35 x 14 inches 
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Vessel (for Amelia), 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
Vessel (for Amelia), 2010
air force flight suit, aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, finnish plywood, steel, balsa, Flashe
60 x 23 x 10 inches 
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Marker, 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
Marker, 2010
site specific installation
glider instrument panel, aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, Flashe
38.5 x 47 x 10 inches
by commission

PAUL VILLINSKI Wreath, 2010

PAUL VILLINSKI
Wreath, 2010
tank driver's helmet, aluminum (found cans), stainless steel wire, Flashe
25.5 x 14 x 12 inches 
by commission

press release ::: PAUL VILLINSKI --- 'Glidepath'

Jonathan Ferrara Gallery is pleased to present new works by artist Paul Villinski in his solo exhibition Glidepath. The exhibition explores the serene act of flight through a delicate meditation on found objects. Illuminating Villinski’s tendency towards the metamorphosis of tattered materials into evocative forms, Glidepath’s narrative of flight ebbs and flows from the explosive energy of birds made from LP records through the sinuous streams of blue flashe-painted butterflies crafted from found aluminum cans.

Of his recycled forms, Villinski says “I am drawn to humble, yet evocative materials; in this case, crushed aluminum cans from the streets of New York - every one of them once raised to someone’s lips. My process of “recycling” them into images of butterflies is a quiet physical meditation, a yoga of tin snips and files and fingers…they want to gather into a certain shape, or fly off on a particular tangent, and I let them. They function both as marks in these abstract, three-dimensional “paintings,” and as actors in curious narratives.”

In Glidepath, the energy of flight is harnessed in works like Diaspora, which travels to New Orleans after making its debut in Never Can Say Goodbye, a site-specific installation at the former Tower Records in New York City presented by No Longer Empty. Emanating from hand-crafted boxes made from discarded album covers, over 130 birds radiate outwards, each with its unique identity headed to an unspecified destination. Villinski then revisits his signature form of the butterfly, which embraces a quirky, magic-realist quality that reverberates in their scattered pathways through found objects including an old tank driver’s helmet in Wreath, a vintage flight suit in Vessel (for Amelia), a rustic glider instrument panel in Marker, dancing alight through works like On Final (for St. Ex), and pausing for reflection among works like Idyll, an antique French easel awash with butterflies.  These ethereal compositions implicitly evoke the lurid beauty of the past and the act of transformation.

Paul Villinski (born York, Maine, 1960) has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. Villinski’s work has been included in more than ninety exhibitions, including Prospect.1 Biennial (LA) Rice University Art Gallery (TX, Ballroom Marfa (TX), The Hillwood Art Museum (NY), the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (ME), Carnegie Mellon University (PA), Arkansas State University, the University of Wyoming Art Museum, Wesleyan University and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans) and Morgan Lehman Gallery (NYC).  He has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Millay Colony (NY), the Ucross Foundation (WY), the Djerassi Foundation (CA) and the Villa Montalvo Arts Center (CA). He taught as an Adjunct Lecturer in Art History at the CUNY LaGuardia Community College. 

His work is in numerous collections including Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, New Orleans Museum of Art, Progressive Insurance, Virginia Museum of Art and The Museum of Arts and Design.  Villinski has been reviewed and featured in numerous publications including ARTnews, Art In America, Artforum, Elle Italy, Metropolitan Home, Traditional Home, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,  Sculpture Magazine, The Art Newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Sun, The New York Times, The Times-Picayune, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post.