(NOTE: You can click on each image to view details about each of the paintings.)
2020 is, of course, the year we were asked – or ordered – to stay home to avoid the spread of Covid-19. Except for a few days at the beginning of the stay-at-home order, I reported to work.
Since I could not go to museums or take classes in person, I decided to follow a course by Alex Hillkurtz on urban watercolor painting. That thrust me into a frenzy of painting like I hadn’t experienced since my days in college. Every day, back from work, I would sit in my studio and paint. Some people saw my work online and either bought the images or commissioned me to create them.
I set myself the following principles in choosing what to paint: if I worked from a photograph, it had to be one I took; if I took an image from somewhere else, it would only be a screen capture from a video; and, I would always modify what I saw so it would not be a straight copy from a photo.
Splash Down, Anzio (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Chicago Theatre (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Skyline from 500 West Washington, Chicago (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
View from the Cathedral, Palermo (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Alley at Night, Palermo (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Alley, Città di Castello (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Chica (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Sweetness (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme 
Buckingham Fountain, Chicago (April 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme
In this process, I remembered there were some bas-relief from buildings I had walked by in Chicago that haunted me for years, so they became another source of material for watercolors.
Downtown Prometheus (May 2020) 
Wicker Park Terracotta (August 2020)
Then came the demonstrations and riots around the country. I ride my bicycle downtown to take the train to work, and the change of energy around me prompted me to keep my phone recording all the time, just in case I found myself in a situation I wanted or needed to document.
State Street, 4:30 p.m. (November 2020) 
Damen Avenue, 2 p.m. (October 2020) 
Metra Train Overpass, 4:45 p.m. (July 2020)
I have a hard time sitting down and watching movies, but this was the year I spent long hours watching Netflix and Amazon Prime movies as I never did before in my life. I started sketching from these series.
Rappero Italiano (My Netflix series, September 2020). © Gian Luca Ferme
Finally, I always liked to draw the human body but, again, because of Covid restrictions, I could not participate in the figure drawing sessions in studios around Chicago. So, one day I went looking for contemporary dance videos on YouTube and landed on a recording of an Italian aerialist, Andrea Paoli. From there, I discovered that other aerialists post their training videos on Instagram and I began sketching and painting them.
Andrea Paoli #1 (Aerialists series, September 2020) 
Andrea Paoli #2 (Aerialists series, October 2020) 
Andrea Paoli #3 (Aerialists series, October 2020) 
airlerina #1 (Aerialists series, October 2020) 
airlerina #2 (Aerialists series, October 2020) 
airlerina #3 (Aerialists series, November 2020) 
acro.mel #1 (Aerialists series, November 2020)