“DC is my City”: Carlos Carmonamedina on his popular postcard series
By hola | Published | No Comments
When local artist Carlos Carmonamedina moved to D.C. in 2015, he found that drawing his surroundings was a way to acquaint himself with this new city. He decided to challenge himself, posting one illustration online each week. What started out as a personal project soon became DC is my city, a popular postcard series that captures the nuance and diversity of our nation’s capital. To this day he has 185 illustrations that he now sells as postcards and prints.
During our zoom interview last spring (part of which you can watch above) Carmonamedina was in the midst of revamping his series after a brief pause to adjust to the rapidly changing world created by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the video, he discusses the beginnings of his postcard series, finding a balance between creating commercially successful and socially conscious art and the role of his art in 2020.
“It’s my goal to be someone who documents what the city is going through in this period of time,” Carmonamedina told Hola Cultura.
“If someone in 100 years is going to look at this work and they’re going to be like ‘Oh how [did] people used to dress back in 2020?’ or ‘What was going on in the city?’ They could go to my work and reference a series of circumstances.”
From left to right: Prelude to a Photo Op at St. John’s Episcopal Church [#166], Name Change [#171], The Day Before the Presidential Election [#183], Celebrations at the Black Lives Matter Plaza [#184]
Eventually, Carmonamedina plans to expand his series and represent other locations in the DMV. He hinted at this new series back in February with an illustration of the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia. For now, this series has been put on hold as Carmonamedina has found himself occupied documenting the increasingly tense political climate in the city.
“[T]he pandemic accelerated social conflict. As an artist I couldn’t avoid addressing it. It’s part of my job,” he said over the phone recently. “I’ve had to detach myself from the idea that D.C. is only monuments.”
—Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe + Hola Cultura’s S.P.E.L. storytelling program
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