Rabbits. 2025, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches 

March 17–22, 2026
Drop-in reception Friday, March 20 from 5:00-6:30 pm

The Carlos Gallery in the Visual Art Building at the University of the South is pleased to present Flesh Without Blood, an exhibition by Audrey Hoffman, C'26.

In Flesh Without Blood, Hoffman examines and complicates the false dichotomies of life and death, natural and artificial, and empathy and disgust through animal portraiture and fictionalized representations of the body. In her animal portraiture, she focuses on the casualties of the natural world and the strong emotional reactions they inspire. In this work, the light, fluffy textures of a bird’s feathers or a rabbit’s fur create an inviting, tactile experience; hard, rough concrete and bones push back, and damp earth sinks under footsteps. Canvases cradle the subjects, protecting them from harm. In her other work, she uses wax and textiles to reimagine the internal tissues of the body. Samples of flesh feel alternately warm and alive, or cold, dead, and disposable. The textures of skin and internal organs are softened and remade as art objects, but retain their visceral quality. In conversation with each other, these bodies of work explore what exactly makes a subject, object, or surface “feel” alive.

Little Bird. 2025. oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches.

Audrey Hoffman is a native of Antioch, Tennessee who explores emotional and embodied experiences of life, death, and something in between through painting, wax sculpture, and textiles. She is studying at Sewanee: The University of the South, where she received the Fellowship in the Arts Scholarship for four years, and works at the University Art Gallery as Team Leader and Gallery Attendant. She will graduate in 2026 with a BA in Art and minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her work has been exhibited in the Frist Art Museum, and she is trained in wax figure maintenance at Madame Tussauds Nashville.

Carlos Gallery
Visual Art Building
105 Kennerly Rd.
University of the South
Sewanee, Tennessee
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday 8 AM – 5 PM
Contact: Jessica Wohl (jewohl@sewanee.edu)