Planting Ideas
St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire
20 January – 16 March 2024
Planting Ideas, St Barbe Nuseum
Planting Ideas leads visitors on a journey through the stages in creating an Herbarium, introducing contemporary art inspired by science and botany. The exhibition looks at historic practices in preserving and presenting plant species and shows how these techniques inspire artists today.
It explores plant collecting, pressing and drying, mounting and arranging, preservation, recording, illustration and economic botany. Each of these themes is illustrated by artefacts on loan and from St Barbe’s collection. They are embellished by contemporary artworks including a basket by Catherine Beaumont, cyanotypes by Angela Chalmers, road dust prints by Edward Chell, embroidery by Amanda Cobbett, Lynn Comley’s felt and embroidered textiles, Caroline Dear’s moss construction, Joe Horner’s photography, Stef Mitchell’s monotypes, Sarah Morrish’s botanical illustrations, Sarah Paramor’s moss bag and Helen Thomas’s paintings.