The Machine in the Garden consists of an oil painting mounted on wallpaper, housed within a cast cement frame inscribed with the phrase “Et In Arcadia Ego, After Ian Hamilton Finlay.” The work reflects on how ideologies replicate and persist across time and space. By invoking both Nicolas Poussin’s classical pastoralism and Ian Hamilton Finlay’s reinterpretations, the work situates itself within a lineage of artists reckoning with empire and its romanticized veneer. The image—depicting Old Town San Diego’s Spanish colonial architecture—functions as a contemporary ruin, an artifact of conquest and aestheticized control. The cement frame, cold and heavy, contrasts with the idealized landscape, emphasizing the dissonance between paradise and power.