Those Reluctant Screams began as an attempt at restraint—a minimalist exercise, built with sparse materials and the intention to hold back. But as I worked, the painting pushed against those boundaries. My effort to quiet the piece only amplified its tension. The frustration wasn’t just technical—it was personal. In trying to silence myself, to contain the emotion, I ended up creating a visual rupture. What emerged was an expression I hadn’t planned: a scream—not loud and obvious, but resisted, internal, and aching to be heard. This work is a contradiction: both repressed and insistent. It’s what happens when expression can’t stay buried. It asks the viewer to sit with the discomfort, to feel the force of what almost didn’t make it to the surface.