Illustrating loneliness

My thesis contemplates what loneliness looks like, through illustrations. On one hand, illustrating an emotion like loneliness may seem challenging because unlike happiness or sadness, loneliness does not have signifying qualities visible on the human face (Alberti, 2019). Yet, the upsurge of illustrations on loneliness in contemporary online publications may indicate otherwise. Routine images often featuring a lonely figure by the window or slightly turned away are staged in illustrations of loneliness—An experience which, is one of the most difficult things to talk about (Laing, 2016, ch. 1). Given that the experience of loneliness is subjective and invisible, and yet illustrated through recurring visual templates, this thesis sets out to investigate what aspects of an illustration qualify as representations of loneliness? For this inquiry, the thesis has three main goals: firstly to demonstrate and critique existing visual templates in contemporary editorial illustrations on loneliness, secondly, to explore fresh visual interpretations, and thirdly to discuss the visual language of loneliness through these new interpretations.

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 Here are some of the visual explorations: