Theodore Villa
Born in Santa Barbara, California, Theodore Villa was raised by his maternal grandmother of White Mountain Apache (Coyotero) and Spanish ancestry. He gained a Bachelors of Fine Arts, followed by a Masters, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His grandmother’s stories and legends are one of the primary sources through which Villa culls his inspiration for his watercolor paintings. Rendered in vibrant washes, the compositions reverberate with echoes from the past while delivering their message in dynamic contemporary terms. A tactile quality carries throughout his works, beads render a shiny brilliance, buckskin looks like hand-tanned leather, fur looks real and feathers warrant closer inspection. In opposition to most static museum displays, Theodore’s works have life, motion and humor. Fringe floats, balance emerges—that between illusion and allusion.
Since the mid 1960s Villa has exhibited works in one man gallery shows as well as museums and Universities in the West, and also throughout the U.S. and Europe, including:
Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ
Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT
Centro Washington Irving, Madrid, Spain
The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Center of Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA
Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM.
Native American Rights Exhibition (National Tour)
Arizona Commission on the Arts, (National Tour)
Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe, NM
Taylor Museum, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado Springs
CO
Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT
American Indian Contemporary Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA (European Tour)
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Palais De nations, Geneva, Switzerland
Willamette University, Salem, Oregon
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK (National & Canadian Tour)
Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Sun Valley, ID
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA, CA
Purdue University Gallery, West Lafayette, IN
Newport Harbor Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, CA
Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN -(DRAWINGS U.S.A.)
Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
Occidental College, Eagle Rock, CA
National Watercolor Society, LA, CA (National Tour)
Cal State University, LA, CA
St Mary’s College, LA, CA
University of California, Santa Barbara., CA