Plates I-XXXI by Lia Darjes

In Plates I–XXXI, Lia Darjes builds a quiet world where nature slips gently into view — vibrant, elusive, and strangely familiar. Each photograph feels like a moment stolen from a fable: a blue tit perched mid-bite, a slug inching past the remains of a meal, a mouse blinking at the edge of the frame. These creatures, often overlooked or dismissed, become the unlikely guests of a garden banquet. There’s no spectacle here, no chase — just the soft tension between presence and absence. The colors are rich, the atmosphere hushed, and the magic unfolds slowly.

Darjes works like a patient host. She leaves behind traces of human life — a crust of bread, a slice of fruit — and sets up her camera to observe, not to intrude. It’s a mix of intuition and chance: sometimes she waits hours, sometimes days. The images that emerge walk a fine line between staging and surrender. There’s something almost painterly about them, echoing her love for Dutch masters — but where a painting fixes a scene, her photographs suggest that anything could shift at any moment. The result is both intimate and distant, documentary and dreamlike.

That sense of quiet observation runs through her process. Working from a sunlit room in her home, Darjes is drawn to the rhythm of everyday things — birds outside the window, coffee cooling on the table, the steady pulse of Steve Reich playing softly in the background. Plates I–XXXI doesn’t just reveal the hidden lives of small creatures; it also reflects her own way of moving through the world: attentive, curious, unhurried. Her work reminds us that wonder doesn’t shout — sometimes it just waits, barely visible, until we’re ready to see it.