Handmade silkscreen, monotype, and marbled prints

The Oddities of Marbling Garden series, 2022

Sky Garden series, 2020-2021

This section includes unique handmade prints that I created between 2017 and 2023, which are held in private, corporate, university, and medical center collections across the San Francisco Bay Area, Davis, Orlando, New York, Houston, and Sacramento. Sold works are noted with the name of the collection in the caption; all others are available.

My prints are grounded in research on botanical gardens and medicinal plants, often focusing on native California species. Many works are developed from direct observation in botanical settings, particularly Filoli Botanical Garden in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In these hand-made works, I depict medicinal plants through layered compositions that combine drawing, silkscreen, and monotype processes. Visual references, plants, animals, and stars are drawn from The Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript, and Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo’s 17th-century astronomical treatise. Most of the pieces build up more than fifty layers of ink, monotype, silkscreen and watercolor.

Marbled papers have been used to decorate manuscripts and books throughout the history of bookmaking. Marbling—a plant-based printing technique that originated in China and was later developed further in medieval Iran—uses natural pigments, a seaweed-based solution, and oil to create fluid, organic patterns.

As a printmaker, I engage with this historical technique as a space for exploring natural landscapes. These works combine hand-printed marbling with hand-drawn saffron crocus flowers, inspired by botanical illustrations in 17th-century books from the UCSF Library archives. The marbled surfaces evoke fragmented landscapes, layered with crocus motifs that speak to healing, nature, and cultural memory.

Digital Prints

Endemic Healing and Vivid Garden Botanical series, 2020-2023

My botanical digital illustrations are held in private and public collections across corporations, universities, and healthcare centers, including a commissioned series at YouTube HQ in San Bruno, CA, as well as institutions in San Francisco, Orlando, Davis, Sacramento, and Stanford.

The works are available for production at custom scales, up to 40 x 40 inches or larger, and can be adapted to a range of materials including aluminum, photographic paper, vinyl, acrylic, wallpaper, or fabric. This section also includes ceiling installation proposals in which botanical compositions are extended into large-scale spatial works.

My practice is grounded in research on botanical gardens and medicinal plants, with a focus on native California species. Many compositions are developed through direct observation in botanical sites, particularly Filoli Botanical Garden in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the Endemic Healing and Vivid Garden series, aluminum medallions reference Persian tile traditions found in historic botanical gardens in Shiraz, Iran, where my family originates.

Commissioned Installations

This section includes permanent commissioned installations in corporate and university collections in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Shifting Horizon

Collection of YouTube HQ, San Bruno, CA, 2023

Shifting Horizon is a 4 x 10 ft wall installation composed of medicinal plant silhouettes in varying sizes and species. The plant forms are derived from The Herbal, a 12th-century Andalusian botanical manuscript by physician al-Ghafiqi. The work reflects on medicinal plants as both scientific study and cultural expression, highlighting the historical relationship between humans and the natural world. It draws from medieval herbal traditions that emphasized nature’s healing properties, contrasted with today’s reliance on synthetic pharmaceuticals. Broken lines suggest a “shifting horizon” in our perception of nature.

Sidereal Messenger

Collection of Stanford University, CA, 2022
Site-specific commissioned installation, 10 x 10 ft

Sidereal Messenger, named after Galileo’s 1610 astronomical treatise, presents a constellation of wooden circles inscribed with textual and visual references to optics and astronomy. It draws from the work of Kepler, Tusi, Biruni, Hunain ibn Ishaq, Copernicus, and Galileo, among others. Commissioned under the theme of Research, the installation combines twenty-five wooden circular forms (2017) with seven aluminum components (2022) that reference Stanford University’s landscape and research fields in astrophysics and cosmology. These include imagery inspired by the Dish, SLAC, and Hoover Tower. The work was installed in May 2022 at Graduate Residences, Building B, on the Stanford University campus.

Research & Inspiration

This section features images of my research visits with botanical and zoological manuscripts at the British Library (London) and Marsh’s Library (Dublin), which I visited in 2018 and 2019. My compositions are also informed by direct observation of plants in botanical gardens, particularly Filoli Botanical Garden in the San Francisco Bay Area. Astronomy manuscripts that I studied for the Sidereal Messenger installation are held in the Institute Archives & Special Collections at MIT and the British Library.