YORK artist Kate Kenney is holding her first international exhibition at the aptly named York Galleries in Ghent, Belgium.

Why in Ghent, you ask. Let Kate illuminate. “The gallery owners, David and Priscilla English, lived in York and still have family here – and he saw the article in The Press for my exhibition in Café 68 in Gillygate last year,” she says.

Consequently, Kate is now presenting An English Landscape: An Exhibition of Oil Paintings from Yorkshire artist Kate Kenney.

Out of curiosity, she has done “a spot of research, thanks to Wikipedia” to establish any links between York and Ghent. “It’s a bit tenuous,” she concedes. “John of Gaunt was born in Ghent, hence his name, and the royal house of York – and Lancaster and Tudor – descends from him. Apparently, he's one of the richest men in history; related to Chaucer by marriage. Both are unable to attend the exhibition!!”

As for the Ghent show's subject matter, Kate is as ever focusing on landscapes. “It’s one of the lower genre paintings according to 17th century thinking,” she reveals, undaunted by such a dismissive attitude from the past. “It wasn't until the 19th century that artists with the highest reputations painted landscapes.

“Here in Yorkshire this tradition continues today with David Hockney – like Hockney, the Wolds is one of my stamping grounds – and closer to home, Malcolm Ludvigsen, my painting partner from York.”

Kate has been defying this spring’s Siberian chill to paint en plein air – that’s outdoors, or “in the open” to the uninitiated – despite her very cold hands and feet.

“I feel completely free and unrestrained when working outdoors,” she says. “Most early landscapes in paintings were imaginary: rocks for mountains, handkerchiefs held to the light for clouds, but I don't use such artifices – although I do benefit from ready-mixed oil paints in tubes, an invention from the 1870s that made plein air painting possible.”

Kate attended the exhibition preview, Belgian bar visit et al. “I look exhausted in the photograph, because I was, but I was very happy to be in this lovely bar!” she reports. “The preview went well; all the guests spoke really good English and I think they liked the vibrant colours of my landscapes.

“Having driven through part of Belgium, I now appreciate just how different it is from the Wolds - the large number of pollarded trees; the flatness; the different browns of the soil.”

Kate describes York Galleries as a small grassroots gallery about ten minutes by foot from the town centre of Ghent. “Owner David English is an interesting character; an artist himself, a photographer, a buyer and seller, who has a passion for art and wants to provide a venue for artist whose work he likes,” she says.

Among the guests at the opening were a web designer from the Belgian company that designed the official site for Downton Abbey and the last Belgian to be born in the Congo before the colonials were asked to leave. “So it was an interesting evening,” says Kate.

She has plenty of shows coming up back on British terra firma. On June 13 at 7.30pm she will be exhibiting two paintings in the York Minster Art Show and Auction in the North Transept to raise money for the Minster's conservation and restoration.

From June 28 to July 20, she will be participating in the Yorkshire Coast, From Saltburn To Spurn Point show of paintings, etchings, sculpture and ceramics at the Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk.

Two shows with painting-excursion partner Malcolm Ludvigsen will follow in the summer. The first, Expanding Horizons, will run in Inspired By…Gallery at the North York Moors National Park Visitor Centre, Danby, from August 3 to September 1, and will include a Meet The Artists event on August 3 from 12 noon to 3pm with music by harpist Sarah Dean.

The second, Making A Mark, will be on display in the library of Sledmere House, Sledmere, East Yorkshire, from August 24 to September 8. “We love to paint the ancient and changing landscape of the Sledmere Estate and this exhibition will explore the connection between our work and the history of the Sledmere landscape,” says Kate.

Should you be reading this in Ghent, or be headed there in the week ahead, Kate’s show will be up until April 27. For more information on the gallery, visit newyorkgalleries.co.uk