Photographer's layered Buddhist iconic images find harmony in nature, culture, concrete

A double exposure shows a Buddhist image captured in a ginkgo leaf, at Seonggok Temple in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, fall 2017. / Courtesy of Anjee DiSanto

By Jon Dunbar

Korea's Buddhist temples are a great source for artistic inspiration, but Anjee DiSanto, an American living in Iksan, has been using digital photography techniques to develop a new kind of art that matches the contemporary qualities of the temples she visits.

For a couple of years now, she's been experimenting with double exposure photography, in which she combines two separate images, such as a statue of a buddha and spring flowers. The resulting combined images she creates are beautiful, profound and suggest a Buddhist way of thinking about the life as interconnected and cyclical.

"I like to layer the things that appear in the same spot over time, from nature to culture to concrete," she told The Korea Times. "Temples are great when it comes to nature-culture-concrete, it turns out, because most of them are embedded in stunning natural places, deposit religious culture and over time become more laden with concrete elements. Compared to other parts of society, though, where the concrete eventually dominates the rest, I feel like temples manage to harmonize the elements of all three of those layers."

While the images look like they could be created in Photoshop by a skilled artist, DiSanto says she does everything in the camera. She uses a mirrorless digital camera with software added to allow for double exposures. "But it's still pretty restrictive," she explained. "You can kind of see your work on the screen, but the shots still have to be back-to-back... you can't just choose anything from the camera roll. I prefer it that way because you still have to work with what you've got immediately around you, one shot by one shot."

To get the shots she wants, she has to visit a site like a Buddhist temple and take alternating shots of Buddhist iconography and nature. She's also been incorporating her own crafted elements into her photography, including Korean traditional hanji paper and watercolor paintings of leaves, after learning more about watercolor paintings last year. But she says her double exposure photography still largely remains a seasonal project.

"I have maybe three good weeks in spring and the same in fall to really catch nature at the level of psychedelic color I want it at," she added. "Outside of that, things have to get a little more creative ― like using the hanji and watercolor leaves ― or I just have to work with an earthier or sky-based color palette. But all of the best things I've done in the past few years have been from those peak weeks."

The "dancheong," or traditional decorative painting of Korean temple roof eaves, is seen in a double exposure over a statue of a buddha at Songgwang Temple in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, summer 2020. / Courtesy of Anjee DiSanto

DiSanto has been visiting Buddhist temples ever since she moved to Korea in 2006, long before she took up this double exposures project. "I really like how especially some of the newer or gaudier Buddhist temples end up being relatively unknown to tourists, yet visually spectacular," she said. "I've also been interested in modern Buddhist writings ― for example the writing of the monk, Beop Jeong ― and artwork since arriving here, and now I even work at a Buddhist university, so Buddhism is fairly ingrained in my life."

She has mostly visited temples in North Jeolla Province, near her home and work in Iksan, but has visited temples all across Korea and even in other countries. Some of the temples she mentioned included: Manbul Temple in North Gyeongsang Province, Nammireuk Temple in South Jeolla Province and Wawoojeong Temple in Gyeonggi Province. She's also gone to Confucian shrine sites as well, and visits the Won Buddhism headquarters, which is located near her work.

"As for other subject matter, in the past I've been really interested in shooting anything that has different focal layers," she said, "like shooting models through misted glass to make an Impressionist effect or spattering paint on glass and shooting subject matter behind it. I think the double exposures were just another method of layering, and it became the dominant method because it's what is easiest to carry with me from physical space to physical space. It's difficult to carry huge glass panes and easels or tripods on cross-country buses for art projects ― though I have done it."

She's also managed to visit a temple in Japan, and three in Brazil while she was staying there on extended maternity leave. "COVID has put restraints on the international side of things, but I really wanted to do some temple photo work in Thailand for a few months," she said. "Hopefully that will come to fruition later."

DiSanto has exhibited her work in several galleries and art shows across Korea, including group exhibits in Seoul, Daegu and Gwangju. She has also organized her own events, such as a 10-location coffee shop art crawl. In 2017 she organized an exhibition titled "Speechless" with seven other artists with foreign nationalities, offering artistic renderings of untranslatable phrases in other languages, at Jeonju's Red Box Gallery, sponsored by Jeonbuk Center for International Affairs. The same year, she also organized the Grey Matter exhibition in an abandoned factory, which was remodeled shortly after into the Palbok Art Factory, and the exhibition also shown in the Okcheongol Museum of Art in Sunchang. She's also been part of the Yongsan International Arts Festival.

"In a way, I think all my work connects back to itself, though. It's really all about layers," she said. "Layers of things happening over time, objects and situations overtaking each other ― whether it's dust and 'urban progress' taking over forgotten spaces, or culture overtaking nature, and nature taking itself back."

Now that she has a young child, she has been focusing more on family-safe places rather than abandoned sites, but as her double exposure portfolio increases, it's clear she's not slowing down.

She hopes to hold a solo exhibition or release an art book related to her temple double exposure images sometime in the future.