“Instead of cooperation, we have divisions among countries,” reports Alaniz from here in Stornara, Italy. “There are people that still now think the virus is not real.”

Alarming and true, anti-intellectualism has expanded to new heights during this pandemic – likely resulting in people getting sick and/or dying who didn’t really need to. If it’s any consolation to you, dear reader, history tells us that there were anti-mask naysayers during other mass illnesses too – standing firmly in opposition to public health directives because of feared encroachment on civil liberties, or simply because Jesus told them. Ah well.

The Argentinian born nomadic painter Alaniz says that his new figurative mural with his “new family” in Stonara is a collaboration with his love Federica – and it took 10 days to complete. It features a beleaguered turning figure wearing a facemask, but its final face is macabre, frightening. The presentation is confused, perhaps because of the sun-drenched and cheerfully eye-popping palette.

Overhead is a dove flying with a hypodermic need in its beak, perhaps the elusive vaccine meant to inoculate people against Covid-19. Or, possibly it is carrying a 5G microchip shot from the Bill Gates foundation that will communicate your thoughts to any nearby Alexa speaker. Hard to tell.

“After 10 days of work we present this wall as a representation of the mixed feelings that this lockdown generated in most of us,” says Alanis. “This has been a unique situation that has affected everybody’s lives and that has shown the failures of our actual society.”

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