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If you said that Scott Covert is a world traveler, or creates complex paintings while traveling the world, or that he creates word paintings from grave rubbings acquired on his travels--none of that begins to describe the meaning of Covert’s paintings or his cultural contributions to life based on the death of famous personalities.`

Frottage, or the technique of creating a design by rubbing (as with a pencil) on paper or canvas placed over an object, is the technique Covert uses to create his canvases. This technique has been used for centuries by students of architecture, anthropology and archeology. Regarding grave rubbings, it’s been used a hobby and, again, as a study tool by historians.

Covert has introduced the idea that frottage can be elevated to high art. His paintings address the issue of mankind’s common humanity and the chaotic complexity of our global collective consciousness. While Covert’s paintings glorify and celebrate the full spectrum of mankind’s achievements and failures, they also examine the simple frailty, and the inevitability of our morality. Looking at the layers of names and dates, the religious symbols, the human inscriptions, a viewer gets a sense of the interconnectedness of us all.

Unconsciously, Covert is capturing the essence of our consciousness. To be conscious is to be aware and to relate to each other in a cognitive manner. When completely empathic, we recognize the beauty and achievements of others. Covert’s paintings, then, magnify the beauty of the struggle of dreams accomplished.

By combining the techniques of abstract expressionism and pop art, Covert has built a name for himself, both literally and figuratively, by climbing the names of other artists, writers, poets, architects, musicians, etc. This idea is based on popular culture, or pop art. The technique he uses to execute his canvases has all of the elements of abstract expressionism, such as manual dexterity and kinetic energy. The speed Covert finds necessary to use while doing his rubbings in cemeteries and mausoleums during his stealth visits creates the quality of action paintings, but because of the difficulty of the materials, a surface of manic expressionism emerges.

Covert’s paintings ask the viewer to regard what mankind can accomplish; at what collectively we should take notice of; what deserves acknowledgement; or what mistakes we should avoid. Beyond the elements of camp, beyond humor, beyond the public persona of these deceased personalities, Covert’s paintings ask us to look beyond death. And by looking beyond death, overtly Covert’s paintings covertly celebrate life and our common humanity.