Yanny Petters trained as a sign writer and gilder with Michael Gemmell in the early 1980s. She returned to Ireland from London in 1993 and began to develop her work, focussed on a botanical theme.
Since then Yanny has been painting studies of Irish wild plants. Her fascination with colour, form and detail and her interest in botanical art stems from her work as a sign writer where plant design themes were common. Yanny works in watercolours, oils and ‘painting on glass, a technique she has been developing since her sign writing years.
Exhibiting since 1995 Yanny had a joint show with Michael Gemmell, ‘The Living Bog’ at the Davis Gallery in 2003.
As part of the Dr. Shirley Sherwood collection in the U.K. she was honoured to be included in “1000 Years of Botanical Art” at the Ashmolean in Oxford, England in 2005.
She had a solo exhibition at the Tramyard Gallery in Dalkey, County Dublin in 2005, and in 2006 at Airfield House in Dundrum, County Dublin, and also had work at the RHA annual open submission 2006 and 2007.
In 2008 she had a collaborative exhibition with BirdWatch Ireland in Wicklow County Council celebrating the Nature Reserve at Blackditch and also ‘Field Work’ in the Riverside Gallery in Arklow.
Her paintings are in a number of important collections including the Dr. Shirley Sherwood Collection at Kew Gardens, London and the Office of Public Works, in Wicklow Mountains National Park and the National Botnic Gardens Dublin Yanny has recently won the Adams Auctioneers Award at the Watercolour Society of Ireland Annual exhibition as well as a gold medal at Bloom for her watercolour works.
A number of her ‘Glass Paintings’ are in the Wicklow Mountains National Park headquarters and in the Connemara National Park Visitors Centre.
Yanny, in addition to the Dublin Painting and Sketching Club, is a member of The Watercolour Society of Ireland and Irish Society of Botanical Artists.