Yanny Petters

Merit Award

Yanny Petters trained as a sign writer and gilder with Michael Gemmel in the early 1980s, returning to Ireland from London in 1993 to begin her career as a botanical portrait artist working in a variety of media: watercolour, oil, drawing, mono-print and painting on glass. She now lives and works in Wicklow.

Her work is inspired by the minutiae of wild plants and she explores details, colours and forms found within the natural realm to produce careful studies of native Irish plants. She wishes to share her fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in a world which we all too easily take for granted, and to raise awareness of the fragility and beauty of Irish plant species. She often works in loose series, focusing on very particular aspects of the local habitats she has selected for study – hedgerows, wildflowers, fruits, weeds. Her work contains a sense of curiosity as well as scientific enquiry and she also specialises in verre églomisé, a very old technique of reverse painting on glass.

Yanny Petters applied for a Golden Fleece Award to fund a period of research and development that would see her expand her skills in decorative glass techniques such as acid etching, sand blasting and gilding. She planned to undertake a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan and to explore the possibilities of various glass finishes and on-site installations.