Ginkgo

Ginkgo leaves, arranged four around a center, repeated across the plane. The ginkgo has been a favorite subject of Japanese and Art Nouveau designers for over a century — the fan-shaped leaf with its split lobe is one of the few botanical forms that holds up under heavy stylization.

What makes this version work is the discipline of the repeat. The leaves aren’t scattered. They’re locked into a four-fold turn around each point, the way a textile or carved screen would arrange them. Observation meets geometry.

At architectural scale the same drawing would carry a screen, a tile, a panel of inlay. Cut small in aluminum or brass, the four leaves become a single pendant — the repeat compressed into one piece, with the fan of the leaf doing most of the work.