Thommanon – Grace Etched in Stone

Photographs from the Spirit of Angkor series by Lucas Varro

Thommanon is a temple of clarity—modest in scale, yet exquisitely composed. Nestled along the Victory Gate road between Ta Keo and Chau Say Tevoda, it stands as a quiet jewel of the Angkor landscape: balanced, elegant, and profoundly still. Though time has worn its towers, the carvings remain startlingly intact—apsaras whose gestures speak across centuries, devatas etched in stone as if with breath itself.

Dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu, Thommanon is one of the few temples where divine duality lives in harmony. The temple holds a rare grace—its proportions precise, its passageways narrow and intimate. Light enters gently, illuminating doorframes and sanctuaries as if in deliberate blessing.

In this contemplative collection from the Spirit of Angkor series, Lucas Varro brings his analogue cameras to Thommanon in moments of hush and golden light. Each photograph—captured on large and medium format black-and-white film, shaped through long exposure, chiaroscuro, and hand-toning—renders this sacred place with quiet devotion. A curl of carved foliage in soft relief. A slender column kissed by dawn. Stillness caught in symmetry.

Printed in limited editions on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, each work is accompanied by a Collector’s Print Package including poetic writings, curatorial reflections, and field notes from the artist’s visits to the temple.

This is Thommanon not as a relic, but as an offering—where grace lives not in grandeur, but in the attentive eye, the enduring line, the breath between shadows.