‘The beauty of decay’

“Abundantia’’ (ink jet print), by Tara Sellios, in her show “Ask Now the Beasts,’’ at the Fitchburg (Mass.) Art Museum, through May 24.

The museum says:

“Tara Sellios is a Boston-based artist whose monumental photographs highlight the beauty of the grotesque. Sellios creates still life vignettes from organic materials, including animal bones, insect specimens, and dried flowers which she photographs using a large format 8 X 10 camera. Printed at a large scale, Sellios’s photographs capture the vivid details of her materials. Sellios’s imagery takes inspiration from Christian devotionals including illuminated manuscripts, altarpieces, and stained glass windows while engaging with historical traditions of still life painting, particularly Dutch vanitas paintings. ‘Ask Now the Beasts’ derives its title from the Book of Job, exploring the concepts of the harvest and the apocalypse. In this new work Sellios considers the cyclical nature of Earth, intertwining symbols of death and references to life with the beauty of decay.’’