HHM Featured Artist: Octavio Quintanilla
September 24, 2020
Octavio Quintanilla, Ph.D.
Artist Biography
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), and served as the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Texas Highways, RHINO, The Rumpus, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, Green Mountains Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature, and elsewhere. Visual poems have been exhibited in several galleries, including Presa House Gallery, Equinox Gallery, and at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, TX. He holds a PhD from the University of North Texas and teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. Octavio’s new frontexto series, “Los días oscuros” (Dark Days) has been made possible by a grant from the Luminaria Artist Foundation.
Connect with Octavio on Instagram @writeroctavioquintanilla or visit his website at octavioquintanilla.com.
Artist Statement
I call my visual poems, Frontextos, a term that blends the word frontera and the word texto (border/text). Since New Year’s Day of 2018, I’ve carved time out of the day, or evening, to write, to paint. Since then, I’ve posted a Frontexto every day on my social media platforms.
These Frontextos are part of “Los días oscuros” (Dark Days), a Frontexto series I started when San Antonio, TX went into quarantine due to Corona-19. This series chronicles, overall, these days of illness, social unrest, and yes, also our days of hope and light.
- Octavio Quintanilla
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