Lara Devgan Did It

"Some depict women's faces, others their nude torsos. Drawn on thin sheets of white artist's vellum, they have an earnest, Old World appeal, like the loose studies a painter might make before putting brush to canvas. Except that on each page, there is a series of sharp, emphatic pencil lines radiating out from the subject's nose, eyelids, chin, nipples, identifying room for improvement: mild asymmetry here, "periorbital hollowing" there. The delicate pooch of "submental fullness" beneath a jawline. The ominous "midface descent" of a cheek."

"For Devgan, who is trained in painting, sculpture, and photography, "putting it on paper" is part of her process. It's her homework, a pre-surgical anatomical meditation that helps her map out the exact surgical maneuvers ahead. For a long time she kept these studies to herself, but eventually she realized patients like to see them. Maybe when entrusting your one-and-only face to a surgeon, it's comforting to know that the one you've chosen has the taste and sensitivity of an artist."

Lara Devgan combines formal art training in painting, sculpture, and photography with surgical practice, producing hand-drawn anatomical sketches as part of preoperative planning. The sketches document facial and bodily features with precise pencil markings that identify asymmetries and age-related changes such as periorbital hollowing, submental fullness, and midface descent. The drawings function as a meditative mapping of intended surgical maneuvers and as a communication tool that many patients find reassuring. Devgan initially kept the studies private but discovered that patients appreciate seeing detailed visual analyses before entrusting their faces to a surgeon.

Read at Bustle