A ball in a box with a red button

The Ball in the Box – A Visual Meditation on Grief

Abstract sumi-e series in black and red ink

This series of abstract sumi-e paintings explores the emotional landscape of grief through the lens of the “ball in the box” theory — a psychological metaphor that illustrates how pain evolves over time. According to the theory, grief is like a ball inside a box with a pain button. In the beginning, the ball is so big that it constantly presses the button. Over time, the ball shrinks, and although it still hits the button now and then, it leaves more room to breathe.
Each painting in the series reflects a different stage of this internal process — the sharp, unpredictable collisions of pain, the slow spaciousness of healing, and the sudden, overwhelming waves that come without warning. Using only black and red ink on white paper, I distill grief into its purest visual forms: movement, pressure, expansion, resistance.
The black ink represents memory, absence, and the unknowable depth of loss. The red ink introduces emotional tension — a pulse of love, violence, longing, or sudden flare of memory. These two forces interact on paper like breath and silence, like tension and release. The brushwork remains intuitive and raw, in keeping with the traditional sumi-e philosophy: to capture not the form, but the spirit.
This series is not about sorrow alone — it is about how we carry sorrow. How we make space for it. And how, even as the ball rolls around the box, we continue to live.