$1000 ink on paper, by Kimberly Convery |
Kimberly Convery is Carlotta Valdez is Kimberly Convery. “The Phoenix blew my cover last September,” says the 23-year-old “Pre-Post-Apocalyptic” artist as she sat on a colorful, fuzzy stool in her Congress Street studio space. The walls are lined with drawings and a prominently displayed comic book rack brims with sources of inspiration for Convery’s illustrative stylings. Her new show, “Crust,” is on display at Geno’s Rock Club and is the latest in a rapid-fire, year-long series of shows in non-gallery spaces across the city.Tell me about Carlotta Valdez.
She was supposed to be a 95-year-old alter-ego so I could have multiple art shows. I could use her name for one venue while I had another show and I wouldn’t feel like I’m the Congress Street Art Whore. When I send artwork to get published, I use her name.
What are the shows you've done this year?
I did a MENSK truck show with the Indoor Kids, a show at Casco Bay Books, the Hilltop Coffee Shop, Coffee By Design, two months up at Local 188. I have a show right now at Geno’s, next month I’ve got a show up at the White Heart and the Hilltop again. Before all that I had a show at Casco Bay Books and the Hilltop [laughs].
I like to get a show lined up and make the pieces for the place. I give myself a time constraint to make each show. If I have a couple shows in a month, I pretty much know how much time I’m going to need, how many days to take off from work. Then I just draw until its done. I hate re-showing artwork. I want to accommodate the design of the space and let it influence the work.
So your art is available on-demand?
On demand, sure. I’m more of a situational artist. Like at Coffee By Design, I did a series of portraits of pseudo-famous people but I didn’t put the names down. People didn’t know how to take it, these green faces of people who might be important, when they’re used to landscapes. I didn’t sell anything from that show, but it wasn’t about that for me at all. I sit down and ask myself what would make me happy when I walk in, then I make it.
My show at Local 188 was about curating my own work, even though there’s lots of stuff going on in the pictures. That ten-foot ocean, that took me forever. It’s paper and graphite and its companion piece was a painting on the wall. They’re very different but they are in the same room at the same time and you can make connections.
And that's part of what you have control over, showing in these alternative spaces?
Part of this is being an OCD freak! It has the effect of creating a sub-narrative, of tying together the pieces. My truck show was about unpacking the phrase “art-fag.” It’s a phrase I can’t quite understand and no one can explain it to me. I get to be corny about it, it’s ridiculous. I had a bundle of sticks tied together. An art-fag. I take my art seriously, but for me, I draw. I have fun.
