Megan Vossler's new drawings, on view in her solo exhibition "Sound Signals" at Franklin Artworks in Minneapolis, represent her strongest work yet. The interconnecting vignettes in this richly imagined installation of drawings are austere and imbued with melancholy. Each scene offers intricately articulated representations of ruined landscapes and displaced people and animals, surrounded by a large expanse of white space.

Loosely inspired by the dystopic novella, "The Revisionist" by Miranda Mellis, Vossler's conjured world is stark, even menacing, but not cold; rather, her concern for the ravaged land and its inhabitants, left in rubble and disarray by some unnamed devastation, is palpable in the painstaking care with which she's drawn each line and densely shadowed stretch of terrain.

The white field surrounding these drawings serves to focus the viewer's attention to the fine detail and expressive nuance in each small scene. As you move from drawing to drawing, you have a bird's-eye view of caribou migration across a harsh snowscape, ragtag bands of people exploring forbidding canyons or piles of rubble; there are toppled telephone poles, and the ominous shadow of a helicopter flying above it all, presumably surveilling the scenes below just as you are.

For Vossler, a recent recipient of artist fellowships from both the McKnight Foundation and the Jerome Foundation, war and its aftereffects have been recurring themes. Specifically, in recent years, her work has centered on the human experience of engagement in military conflict — the flashes of violence, but more often the numbing hours of boredom in between.

The scope of the "Sound Signals" work feels more epic than in her earlier drawings, almost mythic; for these new pieces, she's widened her attention beyond immediate engagement in violence or catastrophe, instead surveying what's left in its wake. But even against this broader narrative backdrop, her focus rarely wavers from the particular. In fact, the power of Vossler's spare visual tale lies in its unerring use of the just-right, evocative, singular detail.

"Sound Signals" will be on view at Franklin Artworks in Minneapolis through March 20. Megan Vossler and curator Tim Peterson will speak about the work in "One Last Look," an artist dialogue at the gallery Saturday, March 13, at 6:30 pm.