My Magical Garden - Platinum Prints

My Magical Garden is a series of studies drawn from plants cultivated in Jan C Schlegel’s own garden. What appears familiar and ordinary becomes, through careful observation, a subject of transformation.

The work begins with a simple premise: to look closely at what is usually overlooked. Removed from their natural surroundings and isolated against neutral backgrounds, the plants are no longer perceived as part of a garden, but as individual forms.

This reduction shifts attention from function to structure, from recognition to perception. Leaves, stems, and blossoms reveal a complexity that often escapes notice—rhythms, symmetries, and tensions that exist beyond their everyday presence.

The series continues a line of inquiry central to Schlegel’s practice: the act of seeing as a deliberate process. Rather than searching for extraordinary subjects, the work insists on the depth of what is already present.

In this way, My Magical Garden is not about nature in a descriptive sense, but about perception. It proposes that beauty is not inherent in rarity, but emerges through attention.

The series is still in development.