Animal Healing, 30 October to 4 December

An exhibition of photographs, specially selected to be shown in The Gallery, Torbay Hospital, will depict the healing that goes on in another kind of hospital environment – animal hospitals.

This collection of photographs will explore how animals and humans can interact positively to promote healing, and the artist behind it, Susan Young, is hoping that it will enhance people’s visits to the hospital – both young and old.

Susan explains the motivation behind the show: “Art exhibitions are rarely designed to appeal to children and yet many children visit the hospital, so I am hoping that this exhibition of photographs will have something that appeals to them as well as to adults.”

The central section of the exhibition will show “animals healed by humans”, in a series of photographs of wild animals and birds which have been nursed back to health at the Devon Wildlife Hospital in Newton Abbot.

Each will carry its own small story – such as the bottle-feeding of a baby badger.

Meanwhile, the main parts of the exhibition will show images depicting the behaviour, personality and pure beauty of wildlife. Locations range from the Teign Estuary to the wilds of Scotland. Susan says: “It is designed to have an uplifting - and healing - effect on its audience, the people visiting Torbay Hospital.”

The exhibition opens at the end of this month (the evening of Friday October 30) and will be on show for six weeks (until Friday December 4). All the pictures will be available to buy, ready framed, at prices ranging from £65.

Susan Young is a writer and photographer living in Devon, at Ipplepen near Newton Abbot. She returned to an earlier love of photography when digital cameras first became available 12 years ago.

Having a background in science, she has been drawn to the technical nature of digital photography. However, she rarely uses the computer to alter her photographs, preferring to rely on the beauty of nature to create her images.

In addition to photographing wildlife, she is interested in ecology and conducts photographic biodiversity studies. Recent photographic studies for SibelcoUK led to an exhibition called ‘Biodiversity and Business’ this year shown at Old Forde House, Newton Abbot.

She supplied photographs and articles for the first official website, headed by Alan Titchmarsh, and has written several books illustrated with her own photographs. She is planning a photographic exhibition on Poland with Devon County Council in 2010, which will tour round various venues in Devon. She has also written a book based on the exhibition theme.

For more information visit http://www.sdhct.nhs.uk/