Kate Fensom is an artist currently working from both the UK and Cyprus. Up until her late twenties, the highlight of Kate’s life was representing Great Britain in the junior European three-day-eventing championships in 1991. It seemed for a while that things would all be a bit meaningless and boring after the high adrenaline of that and many years were spent exploring ways of filling the void. During this period of wandering Kate did many things, from working many summers as a builders labourer, to working as a care assistant for the severely learning disabled and for the elderly, as a singer-songwriter in a band, a riding instructor, a factory worker and also helping to set up a school for performing arts.

There were numerous memorable times such as brainstorming the many facets of the garden pea while on nightshifts in a canning factory, inoculating piglets halfway up a mountain, discovering skeletons whilst digging foundations and creating possibly the first ever riding school to include a blind horse. However it wasn’t until completing a degree in sociology and by way of reward, visiting the magical Island of Cyprus that things started to fall into place. What began as a little holiday turned into a type of epiphany and having dreamed of being a painter since winning the art competition, (age group 9-11), at the Thurlby Primary school Autumn Evening of 1984, finally the muses began speaking to her and inspiration struck.

Taking a one way ticket back to the Island and living first on a mock pirate ship and then with Ingrid, a gorgeous trilingual Swedish pig farmer, the creative juices flowed, the path ahead grew clearer and she began painting in earnest. She swapped her first painting for a pizza and by Autumn of 2002 she had enough work for her first exhibition in Cyprus and after a road trip back to her hometown, another in England. What has followed is something of a dream as the images and themes have evolved to a distinct vibrant style with a message of hope and joy at their heart.

Available from galleries across the UK and from frequent exhibitions held in both countries, over the last few years these little gems have winged their ways to the four corners of the earth in sufficient quantities for Kate to describe herself as an international artist without feeling it is too much of an exaggeration. Kate is presently living in a little Cypriot village with her artist husband and their little girl and thoroughly enjoying her blessed life.

Keep the faith and spread the joy!