Well, here we are, thinking on COVID19 issue. In Italy we have suffered one of the pandemic’s deadliest outbreaks in the world, and we have endured Europe’s longest lockdown, a hard moment. Now we have exceeded 31,000 deaths and Italy still has 72,070 active cases, one of the highest worldwide.

My city – Brescia – was (is still) one of the most affected from the virus and we are working now (I personally think it is early to open) to restart after such a big suffering. Therefore there are a lot of problems to cross at this point.

I was lucky to be fine (up to now) and I passed two months at home. The Library was closed too.

After a chaotic moment cause of panic I tried to create some art. All my street art projects of this 2020 have been deleted or postponed so I felt suspended also as a visual artist. My brain was full of noise and outside all was silence except ambulance, a lot of screaming ambulances. It was terrible so I can’t create for one month.

I read a lot of books, essays, as if by reading different books and informations I could estrange myself from fear, dreaming of other worlds. My love, Andrea, was with me so I felt protected in someway (and I had the opportunity to share with him a lot of emotions and wishes and hope).

So, after more than a month of sterile creativity, I started a reflection on home as the best place to stay and to people that cannot feel the same cause of domestic violence. So I drew a sketch on that sensation. Violence leaves indelible marks on women, but also on children, a sign that grows with them and that never leaves them. The title was “Not for everyone, the home is a safe place”.

Then I decided to pick up a wood panel from my studio and I started a new piece of my Iron and nails project. Hammer, iron wire and nails. That piece is called “The wait”. It was an oxymoron came from both web overdose and introspection. Fusion of silences and buzzes, intimate truths and a lot of readings, a delicate antinomy.

After that another Iron piece was born, a small intimate one, “Food for thought”. I was thinking to the economic crisis is supposed to come. Also I was concentrated to brain as nest for creation, a strange twisted nest with a soul bird that needs to be feeded.

The last one was a sketch I drew as a proposal for a wall. Some friends asked me to think to a big wall in Brescia we all know well, in Largo Formentone. We are sure it will never be painted therefore we wanted to play with it as a wish and mostly as a way to feel positive during the dram our city was suffering.

The title was “Thoughts, words, works and emissions”. It showed a universal idea, which reflects on the post-emergency from COVID19. Climate change, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, plastic that invades the oceans, waste disposal, are issues that we have temporarily suspended but that await us at the gate, requiring measures that cannot be postponed. The destruction of ecosystems, thanks to globalization, is directly connected with the onset of epidemics. The name of the draw is clearly a ‘confiteor’. Each of us is personally involved and an awareness can be effective only if it is shared.

I hope for a collective awakening! Art / heart / earth