All the Wolds a stage for York oil painter Kate Kenney in City Screen café bar

"I like the idea that the work is very much rooted in one place, the Wolds, and the idea of the 'moment', when you're trying to make something out of everything that's changing in front of you: that movement all around you, " she says. "It's really exciting when you can produce something from that, which is the joy of plein air painting.

"I do some studio painting too but I couldn't imagine not doing outdoor painting – though I've been known to do smaller ones in the car when it's really cold! I think some of the best paintings happen when you have to do them quickly and you're responding instantly to what you see."

Kate Kenney painting plein air at Huggate

The "Place" in Kate's work is Yorkshire's ancient chalk land: the Wolds. "This is a rural landscape shaped by traders and farmers; their settlements and routes still used or visible beneath the curve of the land and line of the crops," says Kate. "It's easy to by-pass the Wolds en route to the coast, easy to miss their quiet beauty, but it's the perfect location for me away from the roar of change."

The "Moment" refers not only to the moment captured in paint but but also to when the painting is being created. "As a plein air painter I have considerable freedom to search out the views that appeal to me: I love the crop and field patterns; the clusters of trees on the horizon possibly describing an ancient trackway or a burial mound and I love working with the sounds and smells of the land around me," says Kate.

"Most of the paintings in this exhibition were painted within a short space of time, between last August and September as the wheat and barley ripened, at Kirby Grindalythe, Huggate, Wharram Percy, Weaverthorpe and Hanging Grimstone. Each painting has its own unique voice: a meeting of my own mood and skills with the fleeting moments of stillness between change.

Track Through The Wheat, Kirby Grindalythe, oil on canvas, by Kate Kenney

Kate, whose love of ancient landscapes is rooted in her degree in history, is planning to retrace the steps through Yorkshire of such artists as J M W Turner, David Hockney and John Sell Cotman on her painting excursions with fellow York artist Malcolm Ludvigsen. "Our idea is still very much in its infancy, to paint alongside the Greats, and no doubt my research will uncover other artists," says Kate.

More immediately, Kate's work has been selected for the Ferens Art Gallery 50th Open Exhibition, running from January 21 to March 12 during Hull’s year as UK City of Culture. Further ahead, Kate will join York artists Lesley Seeger and Lesley Birch and ceramic artist Katie Braida for an exhibition entitled Lifelines at Sunny Bank Mills Gallery, Farsley, Pudsey, from May 20 to July 2.

"I have ambitions to do more seascape painting, but I'm very drawn to the land as I'm a keen gardener, so it will still be mainly the Wolds that I paint," she predicts.

Kate Kenney's exhibition of landscape paintings, Place And Moment, is on display in the café bar of City Screen, York, until February 9, open daily 10.30am to 10.30pm.