Kelly Leahy Radding honors the natural world through her art. She grew up on the edge of a state forest in rural Connecticut and has lived for over thirty years on a farm at the end of a dirt road in Columbia — surrounded by the woods, animals, and quiet that animate everything she makes. Her subjects range from birds and wildlife to plants, butterflies, and the intimate discoveries most people walk past: a feather, a nest, the overlooked abundance of the natural world.

A trained graphic designer and illustrator, Radding turned to full-time painting after completing her Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration at the New York Botanical Garden in 2002. She has since taught widely — at the New York Botanical Garden, Wellesley College Botanical Gardens, in Ketchum, Idaho, and in Florence, Italy — and each summer teaches at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Bremen, Maine.

Radding is a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, where she currently serves as Vice President of the Board. She also holds memberships in the American Women Artists, the American Society of Botanical Artists, the New England Society of Botanical Artists, the Lyme Art Association, and the National Tropical Botanic Garden Florilegium Society. She is co-founder and co-host of The Artful Wild, a monthly Patreon community for artists and nature lovers, created with fellow artist Margaret Saylor.

Radding's work work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian, Kew Gardens, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Birds in Art at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum and the Society of Animal Artists Annual Exhibition, and is held in private and museum collections in the United States and Italy.