Shared loneliness

Name: The Invisible Bench
Uploaded: 2025-11-25 17:30:00
Description: During the session, Iryna talked about her father who had gone east; I wasn't drawing faces—shoulders. Heavy, sloping shoulders, then a neckline that straightens a millimeter when someone says, "I understand." The group's silence wasn't awkward; it was full, like a room with too much furniture. I

by ArtemS

City : Kyiv

Format : A4

Status: : Available

Creative Points: : 72

Time spent (minutes) : 35 min

Created at : 24/11/2025

An India ink drawing made in silence during the « shared loneliness » session — a support group where one may not interrupt, only draw what rises while another speaks. Artem traced overlapping silhouettes seated on an imaginary bench in Trinity Park, shoulders almost joined but faces turned toward different horizons.

Ink density shifts like collective breathing: deep blacks where someone mentioned a departed loved one, grey washes where conversation returned to daily life — to bread still warm in the morning, to tram 12 screeching up Andriyivsky climb. Controlled ink drops, deliberately left to dry as stylised tears on the right edge of the sheet.

Second movement: cross-hatching that forms a Podil brick wall texture, dark windows and a single one lit in warm yellow — a sign that one is not alone even when it feels so. The work refuses pathos: it documents civic fatigue, urban loneliness shared in a generator-heated basement between two alerts. Against Stones reads here an intimate map of the quarter and the soul.

Artist Stories

The Invisible Bench

During the session, Iryna talked about her father who had gone east; I wasn't drawing faces—shoulders. Heavy, sloping shoulders, then a neckline that straightens a millimeter when someone says, "I understand." The group's silence wasn't awkward; it was full, like a room with too much furniture. I accidentally spilled a little too much ink; the stain ran down the page. Instead of correcting it, I drew a Podil brick wall to accommodate it. A randomly lit window—mine, perhaps. As I left, Pierre said to me, "Your drawing is us tonight." I tucked the sheet into my coat so it wouldn't get damp in the evening.

Facilitator — support group

The session's rule: a symbolic microphone passed from hand to hand, but the right to remain silent and only draw. Artem hardly spoke; his drawing moved two participants to tears—a powerful, indirect effect. We finished with a round of "a word for tomorrow." Artem wrote "bench" on a sticky note. The artwork validates a simple truth: shared solitude is already a form of presence.

Associated Media

High-contrast India ink drawing photographed flat on grey table, overlapping seated silhouettes on imaginary bench, brick wall cross-hatching right margin, stylised ink tear drops, one yellow window square, loneliness and shared presence theme, Podil art therapy, raw paper edge visible, clinical yet tender documentary photo of artwork.

Detail photograph of ink sketch showing Podil brick texture, single lit window in warm yellow, rain speckles on paper, artist hand holding pen blurred at edge, support group session aftermath, muted palette except yellow hope square, humanitarian art therapy context Kyiv.

Shared loneliness

Artist Stories

Associated Media

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