In Manuscripts, all works begin with handmade paint. The pigment is sourced from across Armenia, including regions of Lori, Tavush, Kotayk, and the mining town of Shamlugh. Combined with oils, waxes, charcoal, and other traditional medium, this material establishes physical and conceptual foundation.

Manuscripts is heavily informed by an ongoing engagement with Armenian books, photographs, sheet music, archival imagery, and printed ephemera spanning the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. During the painting process, this reference material remains active within the studio, gradually accumulating ink, loose pigment, fingerprints, and other traces of making. This build-up is integral to Manuscripts. Many of these reference materials are also pressed directly into other wet in-progress paints, where transferred traces are continued onto one another. This transference of visual language, from paper to canvas, art print to book cover, and photograph to paper, etc. is central to the practice. Through deliberate trace of venerable forms across media, ancient themes are carried into a contemporary context and unified by the use of handmade Armenian paints.

The series begins with reference images, yet resists treating them as fixed records. Thus, Manuscripts aims to open onto broader themes of cultural imagery and symbolism. A mountain, monument, or fragment of architecture first appears as an image on paper, but through the act of tracing and translating, it becomes alive as an abstracted form. It is this continual translation process that gives the works their shape, allowing cultural themes and ancient forms to emerge through contemporary gesture.