CHAPEL HILL -- Gardens are almost irresistable metaphors: They represent life, growth, sustenance, beauty -- but, as the seasons change, they also encompass decay, loss and death, as what once flourished inevitably returns to the earth.

The Ackland Art Museum at UNC presents a special exhibition of works of art that call attention to the unique styles developed through the centuries to represent and interpret garden imagery.

"In and Around the Garden: Perspectives East and West," organized by curator of exhibitions Barbara Matilsky, explores a range of garden-centered themes -- from the scientific to the spiritual -- in a rich variety of works that span time, genre, and geography.

The exhibition will be on display until Aug. 31. A reception on Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. will celebrate the show.

Most of the works in the exhibition are drawn from the Ackland Collection. Grant Wood, Takashi Murakami, Chiho Aoshima, Pablo Picasso, Claes Oldenburg, William Eggleston, Edward Weston, and Jack Youngerman are among the artists included.

While the garden as an entity is more than the sum of its parts, some of the artists in the exhibition focus on single specimens, as seen in Imogen Cunningham's photographic scrutiny of calla lily leaves or Claes Oldenburg's lyrical apple core.

Other artists reflect the significance of the garden as a site for human activity, from labor to love, setting the stage for Nicolas Lancret's eighteenth-century painting "Dance in a Garden" or the Indian miniature painting "Krishna and the Gopi Girls."

Images of floral arrangements and bouquets, such as William Eggleston's "Still Life," represent the ways people bring the garden indoors. Several vases will be on display, including one by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The animals that make the garden space their habitat provide artists with a limitless repertoire of images, including Pablo Picasso's "Toad," Fukae Roshu's poetic Japanese scroll of "Autumn Flowers with Deer," and one of the exhibition's most striking works, Catherine Chalmers' 2006 "Safari," a video of assorted insects, amphibians, and reptiles -- including a hickory horned devil, red-spotted newt, cockroach, California king snake, and others -- that appears to have been shot in natural habitat, but was in fact filmed entirely within her New York City loft.

Works ranging from an 18th-century Indian Mughal prayer mat to the 20th-century folk art of North Carolina's Minnie Evans investigate the garden's role as a sacred space for religious traditions.

Fantasy permeates many pieces, including Chiho Aoshima's 2005 "City Glow," while contemporary interpretations by Lothar Baumgarten and Athena Tacha investigate the ramifications of human development on the natural world.