Each image sug­gests a dif­fer­ent aspect of an ancient rock-cut tem­ple in Sri Lan­ka; and togeth­er the series intends to evoke the site as stud­ied, expe­ri­enced, and, final­ly, remem­bered. The cir­cu­lar for­mat, a kind of lens or peep­hole through which we glimpse the place, derives­from ear­ly Bud­dhist motifs rep­re­sent­ing the end­less cycle from which we strive to attain release. In its reliance on this mod­el, the piece reflects the beliefs that guid­ed the orig­i­nal design of the tem­ple. Each pho­to­graph­ic ton­do con­tains a like­ness of the tem­ple facade; and each offers a dis­crete descrip­tion that co-exists with and ampli­fies the oth­ers. I have exca­vat­ed Isu­ru­mu­niya, search­ing for the fun­da­men­tal mean­ing of the place, sift­ing through lay­ers of infor­ma­tion drawn from ear­ly doc­u­ments and nine­teenth cen­tu­ry trav­el pho­tographs, and then re-set this tran­shis­tor­i­cal recon­fig­u­ra­tion into its con­tem­po­rary land­scape — the way I saw it.

A selec­tion from a larg­er series.