Lifetime Drawing Sylvester James, 2023

For nearly forty years, Covert’s practice has largely evolved around his long-standing Monument and Lifetime Drawing series. His works suggest a confluence of references from folk art to psychedelia, or even the faintly obsessive qualities of fan cultures, while closely recalling Victorian traditions of cataloguing brass and grave rubbings. In his works on paper, Covert carefully fills his drawings with undulating checked patterns, which take upwards of forty hours to complete. Sylvester James Jr., known mononymously as Sylvester, was an American singer-songwriter. Primarily active in the genres of disco, rhythm and blues, and soul, he was known for his flamboyant and androgynous appearance, falsetto singing voice, and hit disco singles in the late 1970s and 1980s.