BOLTON Art Gallery and Museum creates a little "animal magic" in its latest exhibition.

Artist Nicholas Pace looks at Natural History collections to explore society's complex and often uneasy relationship with animals.

He highlights humans' obsession with the animal world and the way in which animals are viewed through more artificial means -- zoos, museums, dioramas and old picture books.

His exhibition, Unnatural Habitat, runs from today until February 22, and the work on show is a result of Pace's investigation into the archives of some of the best natural history collections in the country.

He said: "My fascination with animals began in childhood as I was growing up in Australia. As I got older I became interested in how humans ordered and categorised the natural world, and then recorded it in books."

As a result Pace's paintings, drawings and photography are not drawn or captured from sightings in the wild. Unusually, his work is taken in the main from dioramas -- a form of display still popular in America, but decreasing rapidly in this country.

He said: "The work represents the complexity of nature and our attempts to put an order on things. There is no message to be drawn.

"I hope the exhibition simply makes people think a little more about the often bizarre way in which we view animals."

The complexity of the way in which animals are treated by humans is further enhanced by the adjoining exhibition in the room next to Pace's one man show. He has curated the display, Captive Bred, which takes yet another look at the way in which animals are viewed.

It features his own work alongside a variety of pieces by Chloe Brown, Matthew Andrews, Jane Gifford, Kim Merrington, Cathie Pilkington, Annette Robinson and Grant Rogers.

Pace explained: "The exhibition of my work is more scientific, but Captive Bred investigates how we like our animals as companions -- the way we Disney-fy and cute-ify them. As children we cuddle stuffed animals, which when you stop to think about it is pretty weird."

Throughout, the exhibition is complemented by a selection of displays from the museum's own collection, including original specimen cases, mounted trophy skulls and plant models.

Patricia Francis, Keeper of Botany said: "This exhibition has presented an opportunity to show some unique items from the collections which have not previously been displayed."