Unique botanic art in GFG

If you have a liking for art, botany and nature, plus a good cup of coffee, it would be worth your while to spend a little time in The Good Food Gallery during October.

The latest art exhibition in the popular Kilcullen deli and cafe is a specially-commissioned set of botanical portraiture by Wicklow based artist Yanny Petters.

Yanny has been studying plants through drawing and painting over the last 17 years, working on themes from trees and their fruits, through peatland plants, to meadows

Yanny’s mono prints are of wild food plants, delicately executed by printing directly from the plants in an ancient technique known as ‘nature print’, first used by Leonardo Da Vinci to illustrate plants for medicinal purposes. She has included information with each work suggesting culinary uses of the plant, such as the lusious Blackberry for jam and tarts, the Rowan with its bright berries which make a marmalade, Elder berries which make a rich wine, and many other familiar herbs and flowers.

Yanny worked in London from 1985-1994 after completing an apprenticeship in signwriting in Dublin. While being trained she developed a fascination for Verre Églomisé, which involves painting on the back of glass using opaque colours and sometimes goldleaf. She is now working with the technique to produce fine art paintings. Yanny also engraves the glass. She paints mainly Irish Wild Plants all of which are done from life.

Recent work has been a set of paintings of Bog Plants for the Office of Public Works now displayed at the Wicklow Mountains National Park headquarters.

She also conducts workshops on various kinds of painting.

The exhibition runs until the 27th of October and is open Monday to Saturday.