Trini (Katrien Vangheluwe) was born into a family of Flemish painters in Flanders in the north of Belgium in 1962. Her father, Luk Vangheluwe, studied painting before becoming a graphic designer and photographer. Her mother, Hilda Devos, is a painter, as was her mother’s father, Rudolf Devos (1900-1980) and are her great -uncle Emiel Devos and younger brother, Sam Vangheluwe.

Her introduction to the plastic arts was natural. While her parents studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Trini and her older brother Lukas were enrolled in the workshop there that taught using human models and in the animal-drawing classes at the Antwerp Zoo taught by Jozef Vinck (1900-1979).  After secondary school at the Art Academy of Bruges, she entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, in Antwerp, where her master’s was directed by Hugo Heyrman. She won the watercolors prize of the Lions Club of Antwerp, a third-place in painting in the Biennial of the Automobile and the prize of the Philip Guimiot Gallery in Brussels.

In 1986, Belgium’s Government and Mexico’s foreign ministry awarded her a scholarship to pursue  a master’s in plastic arts at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, and she has lived in that city ever since.

Her collective exhibitions in Mexico City with European artists who live in Mexico include Aquí nos tocó vivir (This is Where We Live)  at the National Museum of Art and Ocho mujeres en el arte hoy (Eight Woman Artists of Today) in the Museum of Modern Art.  Other such collective shows include México Eterno  – Soles de México (Eternal Mexico, Suns of Mexico) at the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris, Prodigios del Siglo XX – Prodigios de fin de siglo-Grandes Maestros de la pintura mexicana, (Prodigies of the 20th Century: Grand Masters of Mexican Painting, Prodigies of the Fin de Siècle) in the MARCO Museum in Monterrey, Mexico,  Mexican Visionaries, Los habitantes de la Ciudad (Mexican Visionaries: Inhabitants of the City) at Cline Fine Art’s galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United States.

She was awarded the Grand Prize of Acquisition in the Fourth Painting Biennial of Monterrey, Mexico, and has won honorable mentions in several art biennials in Mexico City.

The Galería Arte Actual Mexicano (Mexico City), Galería de Arte Mexicano (Monterrey City’s oldest), Cline Fine Art (with galleries in Scottsdale and Santa Fe) and Canvas International Art (Amsterdam) have shown her work in international art fairs such as Art Chicago, the Los Angeles Art Show, Maco and Femaco (both Mexico City), and Art Rai (Amsterdam).

She has presented 27 individual shows and participated in more than 60 collective exhibitions. Her work is in the collections of FEMSA (Latin America’s largest beverage company), Microsoft, and Mexico’s finance ministry, as well as those of individuals.