Mary Ellen Taylor

Born in New York, Mary Ellen worked as a graphic artist and then in adventure tourism, which led her to settle and work in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador and Peru...

She left her home in the Andes Mountains after 21 years and moved to Battersea, London to pursue Botanical Painting at The English Gardening School nearly 6 years ago. She now runs the One Year Diploma courses at EGS in Horticulture, Plantsmanship, Garden Design and Botanical Painting.

Mary Ellen has sold her work internationally and has been actively involved with the Galapagos Conservation Trust, providing her artwork for Endangered Flora fundraising events. In addition to her first exhibit in London (September 2008) with Amicus Botanicus, she has also been commissioned for the cover of a new encyclopaedia of plant life in Kenya to be released in 2010.

In February 2008, Mary Ellen travelled back to the Galapagos Islands to paint a commemorative series of habitat relating to the five most endangered birds in the islands. The completed paintings have been on exhibit at the historical Linnean Society in Burlington House, London during the summer of 2009 and it is her hope that they will raise awareness in the public eye for this critical situation. One of the illustrated birds in the series, the Floreana Mockingbird was pivotal in Darwin’s thinking which led him to form his controversial Theory of Evolution and ties in with the current Charles Darwin 200th Anniversary celebrating this extraordinary man’s life.

Mary Ellen is a member of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium and the Galapagos Conservation Trust and can be reached on 07742 587859 or by email at .