September 09 – November 26, 2023
About:
Paul Villinski infuses discarded everyday objects, leather belts, bottles, crushed aluminum beer cans, kitchen knives, and vinyl LP records with new identities, stories, and meaning. The resulting assemblage sculptures are vehicles of self-discovery that celebrate the human experience.
Paul Villinski is represented by KW Contemporary Art, Kennebunk, Maine. Special thanks to Kiersten Wilcox, founder and director, for bringing this exhibition to the Samek Art Museum.
Related Events:
Paul Villinski: Soaring Exhibition Opening
Saturday, September 9, 7 p.m.
Downtown Location, 416 Market Street, Lewisburg, PA
The Samek Art Museum invites you to the opening of our newest exhibition, Paul Villinski: Soaring. Enjoy light refreshments as you observe discarded everyday objects, leather belts, bottles, crushed aluminum beer cans, kitchen knives, and vinyl LP records infused with new identities, stories, and meaning.
Curatorial Text:
For more than three decades, Paul Villinski has practiced “simple alchemy,” turning humble, discarded materials into impactful abstractions, wondrous motifs, and uncanny narrative tableaus. Employing found materials, including leather belts, bottles, crushed aluminum beer cans, kitchen knives, and vinyl LP records, Villinski creates assemblage sculptures that unlock the possibility of transformation. Littered beer cans are metamorphosed into intoxicating clouds of butterflies; liquor bottles and belts are reconstructed into a timeline of dignity and redemption; vinyl LPs take flight as a form of visual music to connect, console, and transform us. By addressing personal themes of environmentalism, community, abuse, addiction, and recovery through metaphors of flight, Villinski reconciles and transcends his own life experiences while simultaneously calling out the vulnerabilities and tenderness of the human experience in a way that elicits feelings of recognition and belonging.
- Cheyanne Stunger ‘23
Installation Images:
Top image credit: Paul Villinski, Aerialist, n.d., Knives, steel, wood