Great Apes in the spotlight at St Leonards' gallery

The Lucy Bell Gallery can be found at 46 Norman Road, St Leonards, TN38 0EJ. The gallery is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10-5pm.

Hastings-based Ian will be in the gallery on Saturday, October 31 from 11am-4pm to answer questions about the conservation projects. Maximum four people allowed in the gallery at one time.

As Lucy explains: “Ian Wood is a photographer and writer, living in East Sussex, who specialises in wildlife, nature and conservation. His work has been published in a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and books internationally including The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

“One of Ian’s main passions are the great apes which he has photographed regularly in the wild over the last 20 years.

“He has raised significant funds for great ape conservation projects by taking small groups of people to see these animals in their forest homes and making donations from these trips to conservation projects protecting critical habitats.

“Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, Ian has had to postpone this year’s trips and so the idea was born to raise badly-needed funds by producing a range of limited edition prints of mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. These prints will be auctioned with the proceeds from the sales going to the relevant NGO.

“The first edition of one photo of each of these animals has been signed by Sir David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Ashley Leiman respectively. See www.agoodplace.co.uk/prints for auction details.

“There is also a further range of limited edition prints, signed by Ian Wood, of a selection of great ape images on exhibition at the Gallery with 25 per cent of sales also going to support the work of these conservation organisations. A3 limited edition prints are available during the exhibition for £95.”