Ancient Seams

The Villa Farnesina is one of Rome's great Renaissance landmarks, its principal rooms covered in frescoes by Raphael that draw visitors from around the world. I moved through those manicured rooms and instead kept going, into the quieter spaces further back — the undecorated rooms that exist in the shadow of all that grandeur — and it was there that I found what I was actually looking for.

Signs of the past, moments of transition, proof of life; a section of the original damask wallpaper had begun to peel away from the wall beneath it, revealing layers of paint, plaster, what might be wood, all of it cracked, marked, and stained with time — there was even a small stripe of blue appearing almost like an accidental signature in the exposed surface. I photographed with my Hasselblad using my macro lens, trying to preserve as much detail to the 120 film as possible — I wanted to be sure I caught the feeling of the walls shedding its skin.

Ancient Seams is an archival giclée print held in a lacquered black contemporary wood frame whose angular edges catch the light and direct the eye inward — the frame itself pointing you toward the image, toward the seam, toward the place where things come apart and show you what they were always made of underneath.The seam is where breakdown begins, and also where the most honest information lives.

This piece is part of Bright Ruin (2025), my series of over 45 unique works shot entirely on analog film over the course of 10 days in Rome, and first exhibited at Gallery ATARAH in September 2025.