The SAS Gallery at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School in Sewanee, Tennessee, has opened its 2018-19 gallery season with a collection of charcoal drawings by Tara Shukla that gallery director Julie Jones describes as “sublime [and] highly detailed.”
If you go
› What: “Shukla’s Bone Drawings.”› When: Through Friday, Sept. 21. Reception, 3-6 p.m. CDT Thursday, Aug. 30. Gallery open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday and by appointment.› Where: SAS Gallery at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School, 290 Quintard Road, Sewanee, Tenn.› Admission: Free.› Phone: 931-598-5651.› Website: www.sasweb.org.
“Skull,” a 30- by 22-inch charcoal on paper by Tara Shukla. (Photo from SAS Gallery)They are drawings of bones.
In “Shukla’s Bone Drawings,” the artist offers not some macabre scene of skeletal remains – though, in the strictest sense, they are that. No, as Jones describes, these are sublime renderings that could just as easily illustrate an art book as a medical journal.
These recent drawings are based on specimens Shukla borrowed from the Grinnell College Biology Department and are inspired by traditions of trompe l’oeil painting, natural history and scientific illustration.