Chlorophyll Grid is a photosynthetic image-making experiment in which a grid pattern is manually assembled and applied to a monstera leaf. The pattern is built diamond by diamond across the curved, irregular surface of the leaf using simple masking tape. The work explores the relationship between manual pattern-making and computational systems of spatial organization. Constructed through a slow process of eye-hand coordination and repetitive labour, the grid contrasts with the algorithmic operations that automate spatial division in contemporary modelling, rendering, and imaging technologies. It also draws on the modernist tradition of the pictorial grid, particularly artists such as Agnes Martin, where the grid operates as both an abstraction and a structure suspended between cognition and the pictorial plane.

The process draws on traditional subtractive printing techniques such as etching and stencilling, but on a living plant surface the image is never fixed. Over time, the masked areas are prevented from producing chlorophyll, leaving lighter traces across the leaf. As the plant continues its metabolic activity, chlorophyll gradually returns and the pattern slowly dissolves.

In contemporary biotechnology and climate observation, chlorophyll has become an important marker of ecological condition. Satellite ocean-colour datasets use chlorophyll-a concentration and remote sensing reflectance to monitor the health and productivity of marine ecosystems as well as the global carbon cycle. Within this context, the leaf may be read as a living index: a biosynthetic surface with its own metabolic intelligence. The grid mediates several visual languages simultaneously, from modernist abstraction and cartographic division to computational models for organizing and measuring space. Here, chlorophyll is imagined not only as pigment, but as a calculative medium—a material process capable of registering, encoding, and transforming information.