Margaret Walty
I was born in Switzerland and lived in Lebanon, Singapore, Algeria and Spain before returning to Geneva to study at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. My training there as a silversmith and jeweller honed my eye for the minute detail I put into my paintings. These are inspired by myth and fairy tale, and by the nature and landscapes of my mother’s home town in the Borderlands of Scotland, where I now live.
I have illustrated books including children’s stories by Joan Aiken and by the Brothers Grimm, The Celtic Lunar Zodiac by Helena Paterson (an exploration of Celtic astrology and myth), and Greenworld by Dougal Dixon (a science fiction story, published in Japan). My work has found homes worlwide, and I have also exhibited widely, especially at conventions such as the World Fantasy Convention, the World Science Fiction Convention, and the British Science Fiction Convention.
I have been awarded four Gold Medals and five Silver-Gilt by the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society for botanical illustration, and am a member of the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists.
I paint in acrylics and watercolours, and also in oils, layering the paint in many thin glazes to achieve the intensity of colour and luminosity with which I see the world, and in combining the three principal facets of my work, nature, fantasy and botanical, I explore the boundaries between fantasy and reality, to evoke in the viewer the sense of wonder at the world that all of us possessed in childhood.