Paul Villinski has crafted numerous objects associated with transformation, kinetics, and flight for his sculptural installations and public commissions. Using recycled materials such as crumpled beer cans and lost gloves found on the streets of New York City, he has created room-filling works and wall pieces including numerous “butterfly” works that display three-dimensional butterfly formations composed on walls or interacting with other found objects. Growing up with a father in the Air Force and trained as a paraglider pilot, Villinksi’s flight theme is personally inspired, prompting a series of imaginative hanging or motorized “Flying Machines” that also incorporate everyday objects such as found helmets or a found wheelchair with protruding wings that Villinksi built for his 2005 Air Chair. His handmade style and inventiveness combined with urban and environmental concerns is also seen in Villinski’s public works such as his 2011 “Emergency Response Studio,” a FEMA trailer redesigned and rebuilt into a solar-and-wind-powered mobile artist’s studio that traveled through several states, was exhibited at Rice University in Texas, and was featured in the New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas for the New City” in New York. Other public commissions of Villinski’s work include “Sky Cycles,” or a flying bicycle installation for a New York City Parks and Recreation track and field facility and “Dream Desk,” a flying desk installation at a magnet school in New Haven Connecticut, among others.

Villinski has participated in numerous exhibitions across the United States including “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary” at The Museum of Arts and Design in New York City and “Prospect 1.,” an international biennial in New Orleans. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Serenbe Institute, Georgia; the Millay Colony, New York; the Ucross Foundation, Wyoming; the Djerassi Foundation and the Villa Montalvo Arts Center in California. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the arts grant and is represented by Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York where he both lives and works.