Villa is a sculptor who worked mainly with steel and bronze. From 1942 to 1947, he was a prisoner of war in Zonderwater, South Africa. Because of this experience, his first art exhibition will be of portraits of POWs and military officers he made while imprisoned. He then went on to find inspiration in lush African nature and in African culture. Marble, gesso, bronze, stone – which were part of his curriculum while studying art in Italy – later gave way to concrete, welded metals, and polystyrene.
