Clandestino Dining

Ekphrasis #1: The Visions
A response by Trevor Martin

Ekphrasis comes from the Greek ek (“out”) and phrasis (“speak”); the verbekphrazein means “to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name.” In Greek today, ekphrasis is an “expression.” As a rhetorical device, ekphrasis is an expression from one medium into another by which the essence of the original is defined and described. In doing so, the new work may make a direct relation to the audience through its illuminative liveliness. A work of ekphrasis may enhance the original work of art, as it takes on a life of its own. – adapted from Wikipedia

Trevor Martin Artist Statement

For this project, Vicki and Efrain invited me to respond through text to the work of Gabriel Villa, which I find full of socially astute observations, but also full of magic, mystery , and a uniquely personal symbology. The resulting ekphrastic poem “The Visions” will be printed on dinner napkins and incorporates actual titles of Villa’s paintings, drawings, and prints. Alternating lines of the poem are either lifted directly from Villa’s titles or inspired by this language in an attempt to convey another vision, another glimpse into this complex visual world. Trevor Martin is a Chicago-based artist, educator, and arts administrator. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has shown his work in galleries and performance spaces both locally and nationally.

Through mostly painting and drawing my goal is to create provocative and poetic depictions of humanity.

www.gabrielvilla.net

Gabriel served as 2005-2011 Director of Yollocalli Arts Reach, a youth initiative of the National Museum of Mexican Art received his MFA from the University of Delaware and a BFA from Corpus Christi State University-Texas A& M. He was recently nominated for the prestigious 3Arts Award in the category of Visual Arts. Villa’s most recent project, The Art of Gabriel Villa, is a 100-page book that depicts Villa’s body of work. The book includes color plates of Villa’s paintings and drawings, and essays by writers, critics, and art patrons, including comments by Fred Camper from The Chicago Reader and Christian Gerstheimer, the curator of the El Paso Museum of Art. Gabriel Villa was born and raised in the El Paso, Texas/ Ciudad Juarez border region and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois, where he is an active member of the arts community.