Plates I-XXXI — Lia Darjes. Published by Chose Commune.
Lia Darjes’s Plates I-XXXI reminds us that our gardens can be unexpected and engaging meeting places between the human and animal worlds. Through her motion-activated camera, the remains of a child’s birthday party and other gatherings turn into a feast for passing squirrels, ravens, nuthatches, lady bugs—as well as for the local cats. The latter brings to mind another artwork from some 400 years earlier—Clara Peeters’s Still Life of Fish and Cat. Peeters was one of the few women still-life painters during the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish painting. I can’t help but wonder if the vibrant and lively domestic scenes of both artists so delight the eye because of the stark contrast with their dark backgrounds and the looming shadows lying outside the frame—plague and civil war for Peeters; pandemic and climate change for Darjes.
Rebecca Norris Webb’s new book is A Difficulty Is a Light, her first hybrid poetry book that’s punctuated by 15 of her photographs, with an accompanying exhibition at the Alessia Paladini Gallery, Milan. She’s currently working on Badlands, an ongoing project in the Dakotas. When not traveling, Norris Webb shares her time between Park Slope, Brooklyn and Wellfleet, Cape Cod.