Latifat Apatira

Latifat Apatira is a plant enthusiast and visual artist. Raised in San Mateo County, California, she spent her youth exploring the expansive rural areas of the San Francisco Peninsula. Her fascination with the natural world directly results from the wonders produced by observing the Peninsula’s oak woodlands, coastal scrublands, and redwood forests.


In 2018, Apatira was informally introduced to Nature Printing, a simple mono-printmaking technique used in the 18th century by physicians and botanists to document interesting and useful plants for study. The process combined her love for history, botany, and art. Apatira honed her craft with the aid of workshops, guidebooks, artist mentors, and experimentation.


Weaving storytelling and science, she encourages viewers to cultivate an intentional awareness towards the diversity of plants and explore the depth of their own personal connection to the botanical world. As a second-generation, Nigerian-American, visibly Muslim woman, Apatira is also proud to bring an element of diversity to the botanical art landscape. Her work has been displayed at several exhibitions throughout California, including a solo at the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture.


Her prints and writings have been published by the Parks Stewardship Forum and The Permanente Journal. She is a member of the international Nature Printing Society, the California Society of Printmakers, and the American Society of Botanical Artists.