Layla Wah Art & Design

Multimedia Works

Two Fish

A fantastical fish in patterned scales leaps amid giant purple blooms, waterfalls, and scattered gold leaf.

Multimedia Works

Palace of Lovers

An ornate porcelain bowl holds a world of its own — figures, flowers, and gold leaf adrift on a cobalt sea.

Multimedia Works

Embankments of H’pi

Ancient reliefs and hieroglyphic seals emerge from crumpled paper shores beneath a pale mountain sun.

Multimedia Works

Under Sheltering Skies

A marble angel holds the globe amid torn coastline and wildflowers — guardian of a fragile world.

Multimedia Works

Expectant Mother

A Japanese woman waits serenely among layered papers and pressed blooms, poised between two worlds.

Multimedia Works Thangka Series

Blue Tara

The Tibetan goddess Tara, framed by dried flowers and gold leaf — earth and the sacred held in one frame.

Multimedia Works

Green Tara

Green Tara enthroned between bare winter trees, a vision of compassion rising from layered blue earth.

Acrylic Paintings

Harmony-Sage-Mind

Chinese characters for harmony and sage drift across a luminous turquoise field of brushed pink and blue.

Acrylic Paintings

Christmas Joy

Golden brushstrokes dance freely across deep blue — an abstract outburst of pure celebration.

Acrylic Paintings

Pivotal Moment

A single gold line traces a figure against cerulean blue — the moment before everything changes.

Multimedia Works

Les Fenêtres de Maroc

Bold Moroccan swirls between panels of copper-toned paper scattered with tiny white blooms.

Multimedia Works

Les Fenêtres Moracain

Folk flowers in vivid green and red bloom within deep rose-pink paper and dried summer grasses.

Acrylic Paintings

Sunset on the Pond

Warm coral and turquoise melt at the water's edge, dried reeds catching the last of the light.

Multimedia Works

The Swimmer

A pink figure dives headlong through swirling magenta, teal, and yellow — utterly free.

Multimedia Works

Woman Sunbathing

A reclining figure stretches across a rainbow field beneath a golden sun, surrounded by pressed petals.

Earth Series

Earth Approaches Spring

A pale earth-orb hangs above layered strata of purple and teal, scattered seed beads catching the returning light.

Earth Series

Earth Breaking to Spring

The earth-orb erupts through bold bands of color, pressed leaves pushing toward a gold-flecked sky.

Earth Series

Earth Breaking to Spring II

A second eruption — the earth-orb ringed in green, blades of grass straining through layers of purple and fire.

Earth Series

Earth Summer Emerging

A great amber sun presides over fields bursting into flower, birds circling above the treeline.

Earth Series

Earth Summer Emerging II

Cherry trees flank a golden sun, their reflection scattered across a mosaic of summer bloom below.

Earth Series

Earth During Summer

Dried grasses bow across warm ochre and terracotta — summer's fullness held in a whisper of heat.

Earth Series

Earth During Summer II

Loose threads trail across faded summer bands — the earth at its most still, waiting.

Earth Series

Earth Full Summer

Birds wheel over amber strata while fallen leaves settle on warm earth — the full arc of summer in one frame.

Earth Series

Earth During Winter

A lone dried stem rises from a pale winter disc — earth stripped back, holding its breath.

Earth Series

Earth During Winter Nearing Spring

A tiny plant clings to the earth-disc as blue and purple give way to gold — winter loosening its hold.

Earth Series

Synergistic

Torn handmade paper, a curved vine, a fragment of dark wood — the simplest elements in conversation.

Earth Series

Earth Day

Birds and botanicals layer over dark earth tones, a rose-toned disc catching the light of renewal.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

The Marriage

Hummingbirds and herons converge across fragmented skies — a night when every creature is awake.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

The Marriage Contract

Day and night in one frame — a flowering canopy above, dark earth below, a rose moon between them.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

Blue Hummingbirds

A blazing red flower crowns Persian figures at a feast — silk and paisley, story and celebration.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

Persian Black Horse

Exotic birds above, a black horse and riders below — two worlds sharing one luminous night.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

Persian Youth in Tower

Ancient minarets rise above a lattice of white flowers, birds wheeling free between earth and sky.

Les Nuits Arabes/Arabian Nights

Who Are You

Figures move through a snow-hushed village, a parrot blazes overhead — and two animals question their identity.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

What Did You Say?

The duck and the hen ask the question — and the person asks it of the animals in turn. A geisha with a parasol stands serenely among her feathered companions, a tender, unhurried meeting.

Featured Works

Snow Before Spring

Two women in kimono pause among irises, a golden sun rising over snow-capped peaks behind them.

Featured Works

War and Peace

Buddhist icons, Chinese calligraphy, and black zig-zags of falling bombs — a meditation on what divides and what unites us.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

The Explorers

By golden moonlight, a brilliantly colored bird leads Mughal travelers through rocky landscape and story.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

The Sultan

Cranes soar above a gold moon while a sultan holds court below — power, beauty, and the ever-present sky.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

I'll Carry You

A man carries the injured, weary woman on his back — an act of love. Riders, walkers, a red cardinal watching — everyone in motion.

Featured Works

Afternoon With My Beloved

Two lovers escape to a secret place — Ottoman figures rest in a silken pavilion while a white heron sweeps in.

Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

Winter

Owls watch from a bare willow as orange blooms push through the snow-blue lane below.

Earlier Works

Blue Cosmos

A cobalt sphere floats above black void, strange green creatures and yellow sprigs inhabiting the world below.

Earlier Works

The Sun Comes As a Sign to Awaken Us

A great black arc sweeps across a golden sun — bold cut-paper geometry, a call to open your eyes.

Earlier Works

Frozen Pond

Dried grasses and crimson discs rise from layered grey-blue waters — the pond held still under winter.

Earlier Works

Sea and Sand

An oval window onto sand and sea — rock, foam, and dried botanical remnants of the shore.

Earlier Works

By the Garden Wall

A moonlit waterfall pours through deep green, strange tiles marking the boundary at the garden's edge.

Earlier Works

Earth Strata

Layer upon layer of torn paper and loose fiber — the earth opened up, its history made visible.

Earlier Works

Sitting With Seagulls

A small landscape floats in a sea of broken blue and pink, a handwritten inscription just legible below.

Earlier Works

I Was a Boy Who Sailed the Seven Seas

A sailor boy stands beside his dream — a ship in a circle of sea and moon, a seagull on his cap.

Earlier Works

The Garden

Yellow blooms crowd the path to a white cottage.

Earlier Works

Watercolor Garden

Pink roses spill across green leaves, their edges dissolving into washes of watercolor blue.

New Work

Love and Forgiveness

Somber earth tones contrast with the passion of reds and oranges, humanity's struggle to balance emotional reactions and achieve Loving Kindness.

New Work

Going for a Ride

A lace-dressed doll sets off in a wooden cart, a paper fan spread wide behind her — a perfect tiny world.

New Work

Destination Unknown

A blue toy truck loaded with cork passengers ties a red bow and heads somewhere unknown.

New Work Acrylic Paintings

Flowers in a Red Vase

A deep red vase can barely contain the explosion of pink and teal bloom — a still life at the edge.

New Work Les Nuits Arabes/The Arabian Nights

Umbrellas

Figures in kimono shelter under parasols of red, blue, and gold, autumn color swirling all around.

Acrylic Paintings

Fireflies on a Summer Night

Deep blue and turquoise pulse with flickers of light — the feeling of a summer field alive after dark.

New Work Whimsy

Pivotal Moment

A bikini top, two tiny shoes, a die reading 16 — turning sixteen years old: something just changed, and nobody saw it coming.

Multimedia Works

Crusaders

Pelican, knights, cardinals, and skeleton birds — an unlikely army at the edge of the known world. Crusaders fought in foreign lands under the banner of their country's beliefs.

Featured Works

The Angel Prince

A child-Buddha cradling a red fish, seated amid dried botanicals and the quiet of a winter garden.

Thangka Series

The Blue Tara III

The many-armed Tara glows turquoise against golden earth tones, dried white flowers framing her in offering.

Thangka Series

Blue Tara in Golden Light

A white Tara crowned in gold rises against a blazing sunset sky, a hoopoe bird and lotus at her feet.

Thangka Series

Buddha and the Hummingbirds

The White Tara keeps watch above while a seated Buddha meditates in the autumn garden below.

New Work

Chaleur / Heat

Blazing orange and red ground cracks beneath a fragmented sky — the land at its most fierce and parched.

New Work

Charles Mingus at the Five Spot

A white dove circles a skyline where figures haul a piano through the streets — Mingus in the city air.

New Work

Peace, Forgiveness

Chinese calligraphy with ancient motifs — characters for forgiveness and peace crowd the grey page, as if through repetition they might finally take hold.

New Work

I Am Hungry

Photographs of children pressed against earth and feather — the world's hunger made impossible to look away from.

New Work

I Am Hungry 2

A skull in a yarn crown surveys a landscape of children's faces — beautiful and devastating in equal measure.

New Work

Los Incas

Warriors and birds converge on a map of the world, classical ruins and black crows sharing the same territory.

New Work

Our Umbilical Chord to Earth

Two handprints pressed into torn earth-colored paper — the most ancient signature of belonging.

New Work

Secret Meeting

Figures gallop and clash beneath a gold moon, rich brocade framing the chaos — a meeting not meant to be seen.

New Work

Shipwreck

A wooden boat drifts among dolphins and sea turtles while crowds watch from the surface — lost between two worlds.

New Work

The Conspiracy

Robed figures whisper in gilded halls while a child is born in the corner — birds the only neutral witnesses.

New Work

The Christmas Child

A crescent moon, a child holding a bird of peace, golden dancers before a dome — the sacred story told in many languages. In the permanent collection at the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at Saint Joseph's University.