West Cork artist and designer Natalie Dwyer has enjoyed crafting models for as long as she can remember. Inspired at age nine by a visit to the Jim Henson puppet exhibition “Muppets, Monsters and Magic”, she then became hooked on modelmaking after the 1994 opening of the world-famous West Cork Model Railway Village in Clonakilty. A graduate of design from the Dublin Institute of Technology, she furthered her study into Model Making & Design for Film & Media at IADT Dun Laoghaire.

As an artist, she also creates ethereal encaustic wax landscapes, taking inspiration from the beautiful scenery in West Cork. Painting landscapes using encaustic wax in a modern way, she loves to draw the viewer into magical lands with a sense of awe. Her work has featured recently at the Clonakilty Community Arts Centre Members Summer Exhibition in Gallery Asna in July 2024.