Kathy is a completely self-taught artist. Until she turned professional, she painted mostly zoological and botanical subjects.

She and her family visited Australia in 1998 - a trip that had been planned for almost ten years. One of her ambitions since being very young was to see Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and it certainly was not an anticlimax. Seeing 1000 year old Aboriginal rock paintings and carvings was a truly wonderful experience. She left Uluru with the feeling that a connection to her distant past had been awoken. This feeling grew even more following a trip to Lascaux II caves in 2008 and seeing how rough dots and handprints were used in prehistoric painting. To be able to represent concepts & illustrate life with such a technique fired her imagination.

Her first dotted painting was created during sick leave from her then current job. She had torn a major tendon in her shoulder of her dominant arm. Every dot on that first painting was created by picking up the right hand with the left in order to paint. She was very pleased with the result and became absolutely fascinated by the whole process of producing this work in dots. In late 2008, while clearing out an attic at home, she came across her old sketch books from studying geology at university. It was with some surprise that she found that almost all of her old black and white drawings were completed in dots in the classic illustrator's technique. So it seems that dots have long held a fascination for her, only now they're in full technicolour! Over the years, people have asked whether her work is inspired by dot-work also produced in a commune in Morocco, or in Indonesia and in some African countries. She has never seen such work so cannot comment but it's always fascinating to hear how dots are used in the art of many cultures.

After leaving employment to turn professional, her first quest was to find the best method to produce a round dot. Many of her earlier works were produced using a paintbrush and now are a source of irritation to her as the dots are not as uniform as she would have liked. She tried cotton buds, twigs, the wooden ends of paintbrushes as well as a multitude of other unlikely objects. The solution is a trade secret but she can now produce the regularity and texture of dots that she desired. People always say how patient she must be, but in fact she finds it to be quite a meditative technique even though the work involves very long hours and a great deal of concentration.

The inspiration for many of her paintings comes from nature - the patterns in everything we see as well as the birds, animals and flowers. The only painting that she ever dreamed was ‘Legacy' and it was such a vivid dream that she felt compelled to paint it. At exhibitions she will hear the frequent comment "Oh it's Aboriginal art", which frustrates her immensely. Her early pieces certainly show the influence of seeing Aboriginal art while in Australia, but look closely - you will see the differences. The most important and widely used symbol that she uses is the circle or linked circles. To her, this typifies life - everything is interlinked an co-dependent while individual life itself is a huge circle. Aborigines use their painting to tell stories of the Dreamtime - she uses a similar technique in her early work to portray particular environments, or to convey a message. She has the greatest respect for the Australian Aboriginal people and hopes that they would view her early work as the development of their own techniques and ideas that she means it to be. For the last few years, her work has concentrated on producing pieces which combine the use of dots and brushstrokes. Typically, a subject is painted realistically using brushstroke technique on a background of dots demonstrating either spectacular or subtle colour gradation.

Her dotted works are all acrylic, either on canvas or canvas board, or occasionally on heavyweight paper. An average 30 x 20 inch canvas takes approximately 280 hours to paint; more detailed works such as ‘Fire’ can take up to 400 hours to complete. An average 30 x 20 inch canvas contains between 34,000 and 90,000 dots. She also sells high quality digitally reproduced (giclee) limited edition prints of each of her works at very affordable prices. Prints can even be ordered at up to twice their original size, or at half size if preferred (prices available on request). Her wildlife work is usually on heavy gauge paper and is either in acrylics or watercolour.

If you like what you see, please take time to sign the guest book - it gives her great encouragement! Most of her designs are available as hand-made greetings cards as well as prints. She also produces small three dimensional pieces on wood which are highly decorative and are available at exhibitions  - contact her by e-mail for any enquries.