Katy Selwyn-Smith

Katy obtained a BA in embroidery and textile design at the London college of Fashion Following her training she worked in many fields of design including Fairisle knitwear patterns for Rowan, textile and embroidery furnishing for the likes of Colfax and Fowler and Designers Guild and going on to start her own business ‘What Katy Does Now’ specialising in original pieces of embroidered work for private clients. Katy has also worked with stained glass to create large and small panels. Katy’s love of nature and being outside lead to a career change. She trained and qualified with distinctions with the RHS to become a horticulturalist, designer and advisor. She has designed, built, planted and rescued many beautiful gardens. Katy spends much of her spare time outside, walking the countryside of Wales and much loved hills and commons of Surrey. These places are the inspiration for her paintings. Using acrylics, water colour and ink she enjoys using a variety of tools and everyday objects to create marks and strokes to express her feelings about her subject and the excitement she feels when she discovers it – “I like to paint the nooks and crannys, the less noticed places that go to make up our landscape. I love open vistas, but it is the eclosed wooden landscapes of the woods, deep valleys, sunken paths, secret streams and backwaters that I really like to paint”.