Giovanni Gil, also known as Hector Giovanni Gil Portillo ( San Salvador, December 19, 1971) is a plastic artist and one of the greatest exhibitors of

Engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

in El Salvador. He is the founder and director of the projects Soñar al Revés reaming Backwardsand Bajo Presión nder Pressure and is the winner of the Silver Medal at the Salon of Contemporary Art El Salvador- Japón. Giovanni-Gil

Academic and Professional Trajectory

He began his art studies in 1991 at the National Center of Arts entro Nacional de Artes, CENAR with the Baccalaureate in Arts where he develops his skills in the schools of Theater, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts. It is the latter that captivates him, he specializes in the branch of

at the request of Master Carlos Cañas, who served at that time as director of the CENAR. He completed his studies in 1993 and is hired as a professor in 1994 in this same institution, when he decides to pursue his university studies at the Salvadoran Lutheran University niversidad Luterana Salvadoreñawhere he graduated with a degree in Education Administration. In 1997 he was promoted to Head of the Engraving Workshop at CENAR and in 1999 he made a study trip to Japan, where he visited art schools, galleries and museums. In 2001 he returns to travel for study to

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. He also holds the position of Director and Coordinator of

Visual Arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...

at CENAR in 2017.

Family

Giovanni Gil was born in an entrepreneurial family, his parents are Marina Portillo and Luis Felipe Gil and has two brothers.

Soñar al Revés reaming Backwards

The artist Giovanni Gil creates social initiative Soñar al Revés in 2003 in order to raise awareness, inform and bring the Salvadoran population closer with engraving, the

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

in general and also to change the vision of

Salvadorans Salvadorans (Spanish: ''Salvadoreños''), also known as Salvadorians (alternate spelling: Salvadoreans), are citizens of El Salvador, a country in Central America. Most Salvadorans live in El Salvador, although there is also a significant Salvado ...

to dream upside down with their reality, in other words that they aspire to make a change in their reality by taking the first step, which is according to the artist, dreaming. Its name is born of the technique of the engraving where everything that is drawn must be think the opposite way so that the impression is to the right. This initiative has exhibitions such as: File:Grabado-770x438.jpg, Giovanni Gil teaching engraving together with Carlos Ruiz and Salvador Llort File:Giovanni Gil dando un discurso inaugural.jpg, Giovanni Gil in the inaugural speech of Bajo Presión, Soñar al Revés. File:Giovanni Gil en el Manhattan Graphics Center.jpg, Giovanni Gil giving a conference in Manhattan Graphics Center, Nueva York File:Giovanni Gil siendo entrevistado para Arte y Fe Network.jpg, Giovanni Gil in an interview for Arte y Fe Network File:Giovanni Gil, Bajo Presión 2014.jpg, Giovanni Gil with participants and friends of Bajo Presión.

Bajo Presión nder Pressure

“The project aims to generate a participation among established, emerging and initiated (students) artists in the practice of engraving, with the purpose of transferring knowledge” - Giovanni Gil.

This is how Giovanni Gil defines the project of which he is founder and director. Bajo Presión nder Pressurewas born with a primary objective, which is to join the guild of artists in El Salvador, And not only to seek unity among them, but to retake the technique that was and has been practiced by great exhibitors of plastic art in history. Its name comes from the process of creating an engraving where pressure is exerted on two surfaces and an image is obtained, however it is also born, as described by one of the participants Juan Glower, by the group pressure that is generated where the opinions of all counts and one has to strip himself of his individuality to form part of a whole; among the techniques that this artist has encouraged to learn or develop in greater depth are

Etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

Aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. ...

and

Drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The ...

“ ..The democratization of the visual arts is sought, both in visual consumption and material” - Giovanni Gil.

This particular project brought together, in its first edition in 2013, 22 Salvadoran artists and students of engraving and was dedicated to the person who inspired Giovanni to undertake the arts, Carlos Cañas. . Bajo Presión 2014, reunited 32 artists and students, this is when the Secretary of Culture appointed the month of February 2014 as the Engraving month in El Salvador. In Bajo Presión 2015, 36 artists met, among them students, as on previous occasions, in order to support talented young Salvadorans to forge their careers in art. In 2016 the activity is carried out for the fourth consecutive year and the number of participants grows, being 44 artists and students, the technique that was worked on that occasion was

Chalcography Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

and

and the engravings were mostly illuminated . At the same time Silvia Elena Regalado, Secretary of Culture, re-denominates February as Engraving month in the context of the inauguration of Bajo Presión 2016 . Another important aspect that all the editions of Bajo Presión have is that the collection of engravings after its official presentation travel and are exhibited throughout El Salvador to bring art to the public.

Awards

Giovanni Gil is awarded of many honors including before starting his career, here is the list of awards obtained: # Second Place in Drawing, in the contest for educational institutions of Ministry of Education in 1984. # Third Place in the art contest Palmares Diplomat, with an engraving in 2000. # Honorific Mention in the Primera Bienal de Arte Paiz in 2001. # Honorific Mention in Arte Joven of Centro Cultural de España, in 2002. # Silver Medal in the Salon of Contemporary Art El Salvador-Japan in 2008. # Honorific Mention at the art aution SUMARTE of the Art Museum MARTE in 2010. Recognitions: # Public Recognition of Intellectual Property in the Discipline of Visual Arts: Engraving and Painting, by the National Center of Records (CNR) in 2003.

Artwork

"Giovanni Gil Is an excellent engraver worker in his various manifestations. His work provides us a link with his creativity, so that we are able to attend, visit and penetrate the grace of the line as depositary of the form. It expresses so sharply the strength and the delicacy. All of his product is therefore part of his sensitivity. To see his engraving, it is therefore to see his creativity."

This is how Carlos Cañas described the line, style and work of Giovanni, who although his specialty is

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

also develops other areas of the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...

and his style is more focused with

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

. Has performed more than 80 individual and collective exhibitions And his work is found in different private collections in countries such as Japan, Denmark, Colombia, the United States, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Tunisia, El Salvador, Canada, South Africa, Portugal, among others. In addition to the plastic art, Gil has written a manifesto called "Maldita Herencia" in which it explains a little of the art history, engraving and support to artists in El Salvador. He has also served as reference in other publications as ''Procesos de Arte en El Salvador". And belongs to the Asociación de Artistas Plásticos de El Salvador.

External links

* Official Website
www.giovannigil.com
* Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/giovannigilsv/ * Instagram - http://instagram.com/giovannigilprint * Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/giovannigilsv

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gil, Giovanni Watercolorists Salvadoran artists 21st-century engravers Lithographers 1971 births Living people University of El Salvador alumni People from San Salvador