Paul Villinski

Paul Villinski

Paul Villinski is a professional visual artist who has created studio and large-scale artworks for more than three decades. Villinski was born in York, Maine, USA, in 1960, son of an Air Force navigator. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. A scenic route through the educational system included stops at Phillips Exeter Academy and the Massachusetts College of Art, and a BFA with honors from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1984. He lives with his partner, the painter Amy Park, and their son, Lark, in their studios in Long Island City, NY.

His work has been included in numerous exhibitions nationally, recently including the solo exhibition “Passage: A Special Project,” at the Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin; “Making Mends,” at the Bellevue Museum of Arts, Bellevue, WA; “Second Lives: Re-purposing the Ordinary,” at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; and “Prospect .1,” an international Biennial in New Orleans, LA. “Emergency Response Studio,” a FEMA trailer redesigned and rebuilt into a solar-and wind-powered mobile artist’s studio, was the subject of a solo exhibition at Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX; the exhibition also travelled to Ballroom Marfa, in Marfa, TX; Wesleyan University’s Zilkha Gallery, Middletown, CT; and the trailer was featured in the New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas for the New City”, in New York, NY.

Villinski’s work is widely collected, including major public works created by commission. His studio is currently at work on “SkyCycles,” three full-scale “flying bicycles” to be installed at “Ocean Breeze,” a new Parks and Recreation Track and Field facility, through the New York City Percent for Art Program. The City of New Haven Percent for Art Program has commissioned “Dream Desk,” a flying desk with 21’ wingspan to be installed at the entrance to the East Rock Magnet School. Permanent collections include the Museum of Arts and Design, NY; the New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond; Miami International Airport; and the University of Michigan Mott Children’s and Von Voitlander Women’s Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI. Corporate collections include Fidelity Investments; Microsoft; Progressive Insurance; ADP; McCann Erickson International; New York Life; Ritz-Carlton and many others. He has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Serenbe Institute, GA; Socrates Sculpture Park, NY; the Millay Colony, NY; the Ucross Foundation, WY; the Djerassi Foundation, CA; and the Villa Montalvo Arts Center, CA. He is represented in New York by Morgan Lehman Gallery; in New Orleans by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery; in Jackson Hole, Wyoming by Tayloe Piggot Gallery; and in Palm Desert, California, by Imago Galleries.

His work has frequently been reviewed in periodicals including ARTnews; Artforum; Art in America; Sculpture; Interior Design; Design Bureau; New York Magazine; and ID. Newspapers include the New York Times; Wall Street Journal; Los Angeles Times; Washington Post; Houston Chronicle; International Herald Tribune; Village Voice; Seattle Times; New Haven Register; Toronto Star; Times-Picayune and many others.

A pilot of sailplanes, paragliders and single-engine airplanes, metaphors of flight and soaring often appear in his work. With a lifelong concern for environmental issues, his work frequently re-purposes discarded materials, effecting surprising and poetic transformations.

-Paul Villinski

Artist website

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