Talking Tin and other Rustbelt Ruminations

 

Talking Tin and other Rustbelt Ruminations 

Tilted House

The Laughing West Virginian

Produce Man

Just Smile

Dog Faced Man

Man in Yellow

Mill

By Tom Wachunas

“Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades… abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.”  - Charles Simic

“Every normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light.”  - Max Ernst

“It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”— Jean-Luc Godard

 And this, from artist  Robert Villamagna: “I am very passionate about working with found materials, especially those items that show use, wear, and rust. I love stuff with character…I’m giving that discarded piece of metal, or that old object, a new life, a different life…For me, walking through a flea market is like walking through a well-stocked art materials store. The flea market is my palette.

 

EXHIBIT: Mixed-media assemblages, found objects/metal collages by Robert Villamagna, at THE GALLERY SPACE – on view to August 30, 2025 / curated by Priscilla Roggenkamp / located in two retail spaces, NEST (open Mon.- Sat. 10-6 and Sun. 11-4) and FRANCIS JEWELERS (open Mon.-Fri. 9-5), in ‘The Market Place’ shopping center, 1800 West State Street, ALLIANCE, Ohio

https://robertvillamagna.com/

 

   And here’s yet another sniveling apology for a late art report from this  wandering wordnerd. Anyway, first order of business: a laudacious THANK YOU to the highly accomplished textile artist and musician, Priscilla Roggenkamp, for curating a new art exhibit venue called The Gallery Space, located in Alliance.

   Featured in this soon to be concluded exhibit is the prolific mixed media artist, Robert Villamagna, who grew up in the Ohio River rustbelt. The  artworks that he creates in his West Virginia studio are delightfully vibrant constructions utilizing, among other elements, repurposed lithographed metals (‘tins’), found objects, and vintage photographs.

   His “stuff with character” exudes a distinctly narrative spirit in the form of collaged emblems, labels, logos and insignias, often accompanied by symbolic faces and caricatures that seem to pop out of printed texts. Villamagna’s mementos are much more than random juxtapositions of flea market flotsam or found vintage junk. These souvenirs are truly scintillating and otherwise intriguing evocations of bygone blue collar days in the rustbelt, before it became… well, too rusty to remember.

   Next up at The Gallery Space: Paintings by Christopher Triner, with opening reception on Thursday, September 4, 5 – 7pm.