New Zealand artist Anne Noble’s series of Dead Bee Portraits highlight the threat of human development on the insect world. Created from electron microscope images of dead bees, the exaggeration of each bee’s scale almost reanimates it, creating an ethereal portrait of a species on the brink of extinction. The necessary gilding of the dead bees in gold dust — to allow viewing under the microscope — reflects the still-life tradition of using aesthetically seductive materials and ornamentation to draw attention to the fragility of life. Noble’s photographs show that the image can not only capture the physical composition of once living things, but also emphasises the ability of the photographic surface to offer experiences of form, time, memory and being.