Arabesque Thresholds : Artwork 11

An Iwan arch — the great open-fronted vaulted hall that is the defining spatial gesture of Persian and Mughal architecture — rendered in cut-through layers, the horseshoe openings inside referencing the three-bay arcade and the Girih tile field behind referencing the surface decoration that would have covered every internal face. The Iwan frames the transition between outside and inside, between the profane and the sacred. As a flat wall piece it retains that threshold quality — the sense of being at the boundary of something larger than the room you are in.