Hanoi Temple - 'Oil + Water' reduction

Tucked behind the trunk of a centuries-old banyan at 85 Hàng Gai, Đình Cổ Vũ has watched over Hanoi's Old Quarter since the Lý dynasty, when the emperor is said to have planted a pair of đa trees before its gate. Only one survives today, but it has grown into something extraordinary — roots cascading down over the temple's gilded façade like a second architecture, as though the building were being slowly reclaimed, or perhaps invented, by the tree itself. The đình honours Bạch Mã and Linh Lang, guardian spirits once said to protect the eastern and western gates of the old citadel, and its carved doorway and lacquered columns have survived renovation after renovation — 1778, 1881, and again in 2007 — while the quarter around it transformed from silk-thread street to bookbinders' row to the tourist thoroughfare it is today.

I found this temple by accident on my first visit to Hanoi, and then found it again, by accident, every single time after. Something about that tangle of roots wrapping the yellow stone always stopped me — it made the whole Old Quarter feel like it was growing straight out of the tree, rather than the other way round. After years of photographing it on each visit, I finally sat down to cut it.

 2 layer reduction woodcut, hand carved from a 60x40cm wood block, hand painted with watercolour tones.

Limited edition of only 2 variable prints.