Oil on linen, x x 3.7cm  

In The Mortar District Study I trace the terrain where craft, ritual, and sacred geography converge. Inspired by Machu Picchu’s “Sala de los Morteros” or Mortar District (Groups 14‑16), first investigated by Hiram Bingham, with its carved stone blocks set into floors—often interpreted as mortars for grinding grain, preparing dyes, or other artisan tasks.  These stones bear depressions round and smooth, testifying to repetitive human touch, embedded labour, and acts of transformation. The painting frames these mortars in the fore, their hollows echoing thresholds—places of change, of body meeting stone. Beyond them, against a sky filtered with light, rises the silhouette of the Apus—Huayna Picchu, Machu Picchu, and other cordilleran peaks—ancient guardians and living spirits in Quechua belief. Their presence makes the site more than functional: it becomes sacred geography. The work becomes a mediation on how labour and architecture, the mundane and divine, intertwine—how the carved stone mortars are anchors both physical and spiritual, in the shadow and majesty of the mountain deities.