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Spiders

Spiders and flowers

Annie Blinkhorn, Thursday, 2nd October 2008

Nature-inspired works, by two very different female artists, go on display this month; the first exhibition features work by the late Joy Adamson (1910-80). A remarkable conservationist, Adamson is best known for her book Born Free, the story of raising Elsa, a lion cub, in Kenya, which was made into a highly acclaimed film of the same name. Adamson was an accomplished watercolourist and over 60 of her beautiful paintings of the flora and fauna of East Africa (above) will be on show at the Riverhouse Art Centre in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey (15-19 October).

It’s not quite lion-taming, but artist Eleanor Morgan has been interacting with rather smaller creatures closer to home. Her show ‘A Natural History of Desire’ is at the Foyer Space, Camberwell College of Arts (until 30 October). Documenting Morgan’s investigation into the relationship between humans and animals, the exhibition includes a sculpture of a tortoise god, a video depicting an embrace with a sea anemone and a cup and saucer created from woven spider’s webs. Arachnophobes look away now – 'Seducing Spiders', at the Art Worker’s Guild on 28 October is an evening of talks, experiments and music all about eight-legged beasts where Morgan will be discussing the history of spider-silk spinning machines and her own methods for collecting silk from living spiders.

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