For the last few years, hidden and unknown organisms in the natural world have fascinated me. In my work I have tried to make a world often invisible - available to all. For this years exhibition my inspiration comes from fungi and as David Attenborough so simply put it – “Fungi are very strange organisms”.

He wasn’t wrong! Neither plant nor animal and with no stems, roots or leaves they spend most of their life hidden underground in an unseen network of interwoven tissue of branching threads. Yet their spores sail high in the sky, float on rivers and in the sea and these remarkable organisms are present in every type of habitat and ecosystem in the world.

Estimates suggest that over 1.5 million species of fungi exist but despite their importance to all life on earth, less than 5% of these have been described. They are said to outnumber flowers by as much as 6:1 and are classed as a kingdom in their own right. Indeed, the largest living organism in the world is the Honey fungus, covering an underground network of some 40 acres - if it continues it will cover an area larger than our own Botanic gardens!

In this piece I have focused on Puffballs, these are round or pear-shaped fruiting bodies that contain spores. They can grow as large as 50 cm in diameter and become hollow inside as they mature. During this process the walls of the ball hardens and becomes so rigid that a raindrop would cause it to vibrate and crack open thus releasing the spores in a cloud of smoke.

This piece is my interpretation of a dissection of a Puffball as it disintegrates and becomes hollow. In this piece I hope the viewer will be given a glimpse into the mysterious world of fungi. It is only when a fungus “flowers” that we see evidence of its existence. Yet these structures on the outside are merely a hint of the inside surface and so we see it From the inside out.


Puffball after the spores are released	Limestone rocks on a beach in Co. Clare.	Giant Puffball as the skin hardens.