Guardians

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane is one of Rome's most astonishing pieces of architecture — a baroque church designed by Francesco Borromini between 1638 and 1667, its undulating facade carved with figures, niches, and sculptural drama all compressed into a space so small it is nicknamed San Carlino. Standing in front of it feels less like looking at a building and more like being looked at by one.

As I stood below these carved life size angels, what stopped me at first was not the figures themselves but what they were holding between them. A large circular medallion, central to the composition, flanked on either side by stone guardians whose entire posture and purpose is directed toward it. It is empty. Whatever it once held — or was always meant to hold — is not there. And yet they remain, arms raised, attending to the absence with the same devotion they would give to anything precious.

Guardians turns on that quiet persistence — the human need to place protective figures at the edges of our lives, and build watchfulness into the very architecture of how we move through the world. What we guard against shifts. What we guard over sometimes disappears entirely. The impulse to uphold the duty does not.

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.