Arabesque Thresholds : Artwork 9

This piece assembles the vocabulary of Islamic architecture into a single layered composition. At its center rise pointed ogee arches — the keel-shaped profile of the mihrab niche and the iwan portal — which overlap and recede as though several building facades had been pressed into one plane. Around and behind them spreads a field of girih: interlocking stars and polygons drawn as continuous strapwork, the geometric tradition that covers the walls of mosques and madrasas from Isfahan to Granada. The outline is deliberately irregular and incomplete, fraying into individual star rosettes and pendant finials at the edges, so the work reads less like a depiction of one monument than like a memory of architecture — fragments of arcade, screen, and vault held together by pattern alone. The result is an interplay between solid silhouette and open lattice, where the wall behind becomes part of the design and the cast shadow doubles the linework.