Edoardo Villa
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Literature : LITERATURE De Klerk, C. and De Kamper, G. (2012). Villa in Bronze. Pretoria: University of Pretoria, another example from the edition illustrated on p.165. Edoardo Villa was prolific. His progression as a sculptor took a decisive turn in the 1960s with his association with the Amadlozi group in 1963, which also included his friend Cecil Skotnes. His long-standing interest in realising an amalgam of African forms with an awareness of currents in European stylistic abstraction, which the Amadlozi group shared, is often remarked on. Despite his interest in and frequent returns to abstraction throughout his career, Villa’s work is usually recognisably figurative, or at least always gestures towards the representational. This was true of many of his abstracted yet figural bronzes of the 1960s, and these forms appeared often throughout his career. This reclining figure from the mid-1980s beautifully demonstrates the way in which the artist combined a geometric, almost Cubist abstraction with a much more anthropomorphic visual interpretation, to which the sensuous curvature of his material is well suited. In this smaller scale work one is able to see clearly the characteristic combination of modular and geometric forms, with flat surfaces contrasted with curved triangular planes and sensuous semi-cylindrical shapes. His unique take on the cultural mix of African and European aesthetic styles is realised here in the striking contrast between feminine and masculine elements. Hard, flat surfaces are abutted, as in many larger works of this kind, by pronounced sinuous but muscular curves, the plasticity of which is undeniably erotic and feline. James Sey
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