The latest Sidmouth Wallspace art exhibit is a colourful selection of photos of locally found fungi.

It was installed on the billboard overlooking the Ham East car park to coincide with Sidmouth Science Festival, which features a Fungi Hunt as one of its activities.

The photographs are by Bob Reynolds, who has put together a set of images showing the diversity of shape and colour among the different species. All the fungi can be found in the Sidmouth area.

His interest in the subject was sparked years ago when he attended a ‘fungi foray’ – a guided hunt for wild mushrooms. During the Covid pandemic he spent many hours walking the local moors and woods, and has continued doing so.

He said: “With each trip, the challenge of locating, identifying and photographing them is exciting and rewarding, I hope that through sharing some images that others can see and appreciate the positive qualities of the humble mushroom.”

Sidmouth School of Art has produced a special A5 postcard of the artwork which names each species on the back of it. These postcards will be given to those booked onto the Science Festival Fungi Hunt with Michael Jordan from the Fungi Conservation Trust on Saturday, October 14. The postcards are also available to buy from Sidmouth Tourist Information Centre.

Sidmouth Science Festival Organiser Dave Bramley said: “It is great to be collaborating with Sidmouth School of Art, in this case bringing science and art together, a powerful combination raising awareness, improving knowledge and learning about the properties and beauty of fungi through the photographer’s lens.”

David Shrigley, artist and co-founder of Sidmouth School of Art, said: “It’s really inspiring to see another project up on the billboard which resulted from our previous Sense of Place project with renowned artist photographer Robert Darch. Robert mentored local photographers, all members of Sidmouth Photographic Club, sharing his skills and knowledge with them to realise their own new photographic artworks that convey their connections with Sidmouth and what is special about it to them.”