Katagami Courier is an original work in gold leaf on paper, 22 × 28 × 1.5 inches.
Three ginkgo leaves dominate the center in descending scale, each one built from radiating lines that spread outward from stem to lobe the way a hand opens. Around them the composition organizes itself into vertical panels: a katagami stencil pattern on the left, its geometric repeat suggesting cut paper and textile tradition; a coral or lichen texture on the upper right dissolving into ruled ornamental grids; root systems and branching forms along the bottom edge. The whole field is gold on black, but the gold is not uniform — some passages are flat and linework-fine, others carry the raised texture of material applied in quantity.
Katagami are Japanese stencils used to pattern fabric, tools of repetition and transmission. What Selin delivers here is something adjacent: a composition that collects botanical specimens and decorative systems as if cataloguing what gets carried forward. The ginkgo is one of the oldest surviving tree species. The stencil is one of the oldest surviving pattern technologies. The gold that renders both refuses to assign priority.
One-of-a-kind original. Gold leaf on paper. 22 × 28 × 1.5 inches.
A work about what nature and ornament have always known about each other.
