The Musgrove Gallery @ Musgrove Park
Gina May and Angus Selene
13 June to 12 September 2026
Gina May Selene is a multi-media artist based in Watchet, Somerset. Gina May’s work explores ancient themes of female deity, power and identity, filtered through her own experience of domestic violence and the long process of recovery.
Gina May has chosen to exhibit a series of hand-embroideries and sculptures. Her embroideries combine her own slowly layered stitches with those of many anonymous women, to create dense fabric palimpsests. Individually and together, these explore her largely silent journey through violence, loss, grief and, ultimately, survival. These are accompanied by masks and figures representing the Goddess. These archetypal characters are peaceful reminders of the power of nature underpinning the gentle magic of women.
Gina May studied at Goldsmiths, University of London before teaching art and creativity in schools and as a freelancer for several decades.
Support for friends and family
If you are affected by the subject matter of this exhibition, help is available:
Somerset Domestic Abuse Service have a wealth of resources and support including helpline services where you can ask for advice in confidence.
Freephone helpline: 0800 69 49 999
24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline Tel: 0808 2000 247
Angus Selene
Angus Selene is a multi-media artist based in Watchet, Somerset. Angus’ work combines lifelong interests in islands, narrative, and magic with themes retrieved from a long academic career. These include spatiality, identity, boundaries and representation linked with the inter-related archetypal figures often found in folklore, mythology, and literature, frequently blurring the lines between chaos, folly, and magic.
For this exhibition, Angus uses multiple renderings of a single real and imaginary island – Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel – to reflect on the curious and ambiguous isolation experienced by those living with autism in later life.
Angus studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and Sussex University, before pursuing a research and teaching career spanning several disciplines. Angus has utilized his unusually eclectic expertise in art, geography, finance and magic, to collaborate on large scale performance art projects across the world.
A is for Island – Angus Selene
In 1911, Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler coined the term ‘Autism’ to refer to a common condition among his patients. What he sought to capture in this term was the notion of the ‘isolated self’ – people living as islands of difference in seas of social normality. Initially the term was applied to a very narrow section of society. It is now apparent that autism is manifest across all social and gender boundaries. Increasing numbers of people are realising that they have been autistic throughout their lives. I am one of them.
I was fascinated by Islands long before I knew this. I have been writing about their strange characteristics – real and imaginary – for over twenty years. This series of images all use the same island – Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel – to reflect on the lived experience of isolation. It is an island I see every day. And every day it is different. We may appear island-like, but together we are an Archipelago. Not so isolated after all.
To purchase artworks contact Gina May and Angus Selene: studiono16@gmail.com
30% of all sales from this exhibition are donated to Art for Life to support further projects across the Trust. If you are not able to buy an artwork then another way to support Art for Life is through a donation to Somerset NHS Charity
To apply to exhibit at Musgrove Park Hospital or Yeovil Hospital, email artforlife@somersetft.nhs.uk