Artist Statement

“the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (Benjamin Part IV).

“When the image comes to be involved in rituals, and is the object of mediative concentration by accomplished practitioners, its religious value increases in the eyes of the community. And when an image is said actually to have come to life, to have spoken to a meditater or to have performed some action (of which there are many stories in Tibet)--it is seen as having a powerfully numinous presence” (Gyatso 172).

“the image [is] always more than a substitute for the presence of the Buddha or deity; it radiates its own presence, which for the religious perceiver is the same as that of the Buddha” (Gyatso 171).