Francesco Lauretta's 'ugly drawings' as pandemic chronicle

Italian artist Francesco Lauretta (born 1964 in Ispica) has created a series of rapid, unre touched drawings during the COVID-19 pandemic, each executed in 3 to 5 minutes. The project began with a doodle dedicated to Tiziano Vecellio and continued daily for thirty days, later accelerating unpredictably. Lauretta has produced about fifty portraits so far, which have started attracting attention. He describes the drawings as a 'death knell'—tolling the memory of a fateful day. The artist started them a week before Italy's transition to Phase 2, when everything seemed stalled. He used leftover paint on his palette while working on other paintings, occasionally portraying artists that came to his attention via web mishaps or memory. Lauretta aims for an 'ugly' or 'antigraceful' result, using quick brushstrokes as signals. He considers the project a commitment lasting as long as the virus, hoping the frustrating sense of wanting to do everything right will dissolve with the last drawing, coinciding with the restoration of life as before.