House, Gardens & Cafe Open Tuesday - Sunday 10.30 - 17.00

Exhibition: Hyper-Nature

Hyper-Nature

Artist Joe Shaw has been intensively photographing nature around Selborne for over a year now, observing the changes and looking closely at detail.  Using the camera lens as a tool has enabled Joe to magnify detail not seen by the naked eye. These photographs inspired a series of digital re-workings to transform the originals into something unrecognisable.

Joe has taken impressions of elements within the gardens that are usually undiscovered, bringing them inside and presenting them as precious artifacts.

With respect to Gilbert White’s ethos of ‘watching narrowly’, Joe wants the viewer to be intrigued by the unfamiliar, to make them look more closely, and to be curious.

The exhibition is free with admission and open in line with house & garden opening hours

Joe Shaw

Joe Shaw graduated from Fine Art at UCA Farnham in 2018. Joe has a versatile approach to his art practice, exploring concepts through different media including painting, photography, sculpture, installation, projection, and digital creations.

Being a resident of Selborne for over a decade, Joe has an affinity with the local area and has a love of Selborne’s history and natural environment.

    Gilbert Whites House

    Gilbert White was aged 7 or 8 when the White family moved from the Vicarage on Selborne’s Plestor, to this house, called ‘The Wakes’ (named after the Wake family who had lived here previously). At that time the property would have been no more than a ‘two up, two down’  but over the subsequent years lots of extensions and additions have been made, creating the long sizeable house you see today.

    The rooms have been restored following descriptions in White’s own correspondence and include a chair he used at Oriel College, Oxford (loaned from the College), items of contemporary furniture, family portraits and bed hangings embroidered for him by his aunts.

    On display is the original manuscript of his book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, which was purchased with generous help from English Heritage and others.

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