2020 - a year of change is coming to an end. My life experienced more changes that I ever could have imagined. Instead of a brief vacation in my home country Switzerland, the pandemic forced me and my family to stay and settle down in Switzerland. We searched and found a flat in a beautiful village in the Swiss mountains nearby Zurich and I started the creation of a new series of works: "Law of Corona". Helplessness was a common feeling because we did not have any influence over our lives any longer, or just to a limited degree.
Corona - Hope, 218cm x 176cm, Spray on Lawbooks on Wood, 2020
Hope came with the summer and lower and lower numbers of infections.
I became enterprising and started to work on yet another few new artwork series, progressions of my existing Gravity Series.
I started the "Gravity Germania" series, where I use old etchings as the base of the artworks:
Stadtmauer - 14.5cm x 16.5cm - Acrylic on Etching from 1980 by Friedrich Wanderer on MDF - 2020
Then I started the "Galaxy Gravity" series, where the background is made of imaginative star systems and galaxies:
Galaxy Gravity 20201120 - 85x105 - Acrylic on Canvas - 2020
I also painted my Gravity layer on a Moroccan carpet:
Gravity Marocco 20201102 - 80cm x 150cm - Acrylic on backside of Moroccan carpet - 2020
My first pieces of a new Antonio Wehrli Gravity Jewelry line came out, where an arm or finger become the overflown canvas:
Gold plated on Sterling Silver Gravity Bracelet
And finally I opened an art gallery called Antonio Wehrli Art Space in Schwanden, Switzerland and created two exhibitions in the last two months of the year.
Antonio Wehrli Art Space building view
Antonio Wehrli Art Space - opening of "Lebensfreude", Solo Exhibition by Antonio Wehrli
Antonio Wehrli Art Space - exhibition view of "Lebensfreude", Solo Exhibition by Antonio Wehrli
Antonio Wehrli Art Space - outside view of "Isolation", Solo Exhibition by MARCK
Antonio Wehrli Art Space - exhibition view of "Isolation", Solo Exhibition by MARCK
With the new worldwide restrictions and lockdowns, the feeling of helplessness is present again. All my endeavors feel like I must have been dreaming, I wait to wake up in my bed in Chengdu and restart 2020. I know that this will not happen. The virus and all the misery it and the reaction to it brought to the world are very real. My new life in Switzerland is very real.
I would hope that 2021 would be a new start, a new waking up, but this New Year 2021 will be celebrated with few friends and no big parties, with millions of people in fear of getting sick or starving to death. I wish that during 2021 we can find a way back to normalcy, to rebuild the world and bring hope and happiness to all corners of the world. Maybe we should move the New Year to June or July where the chance of a new beginning is greater.
Unfortunately, we cannot choose.
Wherever you are, I wish you a happy, healthy 2021!
May you find your dreams no matter the circumstances, no matter the difficulties.
Turn your life colorful!
All the best,
Antonio
