Art for Mental Health: Social Distancing and ‘Skin Hunger’

Living alone, in the middle of Lockdown Summer 2020, after 100 days of no touch contact, I felt the need to order some very large paper online, and draw what I was subconsciously experiencing all over it, the words tumbled out later. Why such large paper? Perhaps because the act of drawing on it felt more tactile. I was sitting on the page, inside my drawing, using thick inky strokes, my arms and legs grazing the paper as I drew. Maybe this was my way to compensate for the lack of touch contact that I was experiencing in my life at that point.

Skin Hunger is a real thing. I only got a small taste of it last year, I was lucky otherwise, I had friends who met me for socially distant walks and looked out for me. And yet, not being able to touch anybody for so long made me understand how unbearably painful it was. Prisoners kept in solitary confinement experience it regularly.

Shoili Kanungo