Two panels have recently been added to Tara Sellios’ evolving tableau of photographs belonging to the greater work, Ask Now the Beasts. Seasonality feels a critical aspect to this latest pair of images, completed 2023, that feature sheep skeletons. The symbols in these frames conjure connections to the shoulder seasons- spring and fall- moments when sacrifice once insured prosperity, but the offerings here seem to have withered on the vine. Light strikes from the left as if to indicate the passage of days grown too long. In Dimittis (feel free to let go in Latin) the sheep’s hooves hold a harp; it is showered by roses from dove skeletons flying above. What remains of the sheep in the second frame, Praeligo (to bind) seems to fall earthward- come apart in pieces anywhere it isn’t tangled in the dry vines of withered grapes that hold together an entangled spine.
These photographs by Tara Sellios are characteristic of the artist’s highest intentions- elaborate multi-panel works that leave the door open to complex references and allusions. Sellios engages references to stained glass windows, altarpieces, illuminated manuscripts, and the still life genre into her work. As time has progressed, she has pushed her work to a new level by engaging multiplicity.
These new images join a series of five previously completed frames from Ask Now the Beasts; five previously executed frames shown above in their intended order. The title for the oeuvre draws text from a passage in the book of Job, a text that addresses why God permits evil in the world. The far left panel, Messes No. 1 (Harvest in Latin) was included in an online exhibition, You and Yours in 2020-21; a revisit of the single work is a deep dive into the layers of nuance a complex multi-panel work as this could achieve. By the fall of 2021 a second panel of a scythe was completed; the pair was included in our 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition : Time in two directions. Three more panels have since been completed of large stork skeletons caught twisted as if in mid-flight. These compose the center action of each panel. The artist calls this visual passage The Three Lovers. The large billed birds are entangled in branches that seem to form the aperture of the missing volume of flesh and feathers. This seems to both activate and ensnare them. Their wiry and twisted forms make them feel like both specimens and evidence, both living and dead. Smaller bird skelitons zoom around adding an expressive velocity to the trio of frames that draw gestural inspiration from a work by Antonello Sellios saw in Antwerp, Belgium.
Ask Now the Beasts (in progress)
Post updates as new panels are made and released.
Completed panels shown:
Dimittis, Praeligo
Messes No. 1, Three Lovers (Left, Center, Right), Messes No. 2
Price Structure (per panel)
20 x 16 in. pigment print | Edition of 5 | $1,800
40 x 30 in. pigment print | Edition of 3 | $4,200