THE ARTIST behind the world’s largest Mona Lisa has received the prestigious Tabernacle Art Prize.

Katy Webster’s winning work – an abstract snowy landscape entitled Whitening The Land – beat some 200 entries, earning the Wrexham artist a cheque for £1,200.

Measuring little more than 50cm, it is very different from her 17m-wide version of the Mona Lisa, which stretches across the floor at the Eagles Meadow shopping complex.

This year’s theme for the annual Tabernacle competition was a section of a poem by R Williams Parry entitled Ode to the Summer, originally written in Welsh and translated by Gwyn ap Gruffydd.

Katy said: “I chose to focus on one particular line of the poem which reads ‘and the snow whitening the land’. That’s the title of my piece – it all flowed out from there.

“I’m over the moon. The Museum of Modern Art in Machynlleth is one of the leading galleries in Wales and the exhibition looks fantastic.

“When they rang I thought they might tell me my work had been shortlisted, but I had no idea that I was about to win first prize.”

Katy graduated from St Hilda’s College, Oxford, before taking an interest in painting.

She went on to receive a first class degree in fine art from Glyndwr University, exhibiting locally at Theatr Clwyd and Oriel Wrecsam as well as nationally at St David’s Hall in Cardiff.

Katy has also been shortlisted for Welsh Artist of the Year 2010.