Take a walk around the small space, taking in the noirish interiors, and you won’t notice the even darker subject matter. Botz has photographed a series of models made by deceased Baltimore criminologist Frances Glessner Lee that depict the murders, suicides, and accidental deaths she studied in the 40s and 50s. At first you only see blank interiors. A closer look allows Botz to lead–you feel like an eight year-old detective working over evidence in elaborate dioramas.

Botz employs a skilled macro photography to magnify the macabre. It gets in the tightest spaces. We get closer and the objects become less precious as they increase in scale, bombastically lit. We are there, like a tiny Weegee at the crime, scoping the evidence, first on the scene. Herein are all the dirty details, sticky messes of blood and doll bodies and stained wallpaper.

Lee founded Harvard’s Legal Medicine Department and developed these 18 models for teaching crime scenarios to detectives. But as biographically attached to Baltimore as the works are, their size manufactures them as universal. Shrunken, the specifics become a homogenized any-place, any-time. Botz and Lee blueprint a model for a how to, step by step instructions to crack the case or become a psycopath. A terrible CSI episode is in the works, we’re sure.

At Hemphill Fine Arts through April 22nd, open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.