Paul Villinski’s Sculptures Swoop and Swarm in ‘Flight Patterns’

a sculpture installation in a large gallery space of a scaled-down B-25 bomber releasing a stream of food onto the ground in its path

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All images © Paul Villinski, courtesy of the artist and Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, shared with permission

From found objects like aluminum cans, bottles, knives, and vinyl records, Paul Villinski frames myriad interpretations of flight. The artist’s solo exhibition Flight Patterns at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park draws on his background as a licensed pilot, casting the experience of airborne motion through the thematic lenses of hope and transformation.

Villinski is known for his rhythmic, sculptural compositions of swarming insects, which explore subjects like environmentalism, addiction and recovery, and food insecurity. In Flight Patterns, an installation of hundreds of miniature liquor bottles undulates like a starling murmuration. Another wall sculpture splays numerous knives like bird feathers from a larger-than-life, metallic wingspan. By reshaping aluminum from found cans into the delicate wings of butterflies, or cutting LPs into the silhouettes of birds, the artist re-envisions the value of discarded or dated materials.

A keystone work in the exhibition is a World War II B-25 bomber that has been scaled to fit inside the galleries, out of which canned goods and packaged foods stream onto the ground. The historic symbol of military force, which could hold a bomb load of more than 3,000 pounds, is reimagined as an instrument for solving global food scarcity.

Flight Patterns continues through August 18 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Find more on the artist’s website.