A WEST Dorset artist is hoping to go from a snow star to an ice queen after being selected to design and carve a room in a renowned ice hotel.

Katarina Rose, from Litton Cheney, will be heading to Jukkasjarvi in Sweden, some 200km north of the Arctic Circle, to make her artistic vision become a reality.

Katarina has competed in international snow carving competitions for several years, but has only ever carved in ice twice before.

It was after impressing at a recent snow carving contest in Kiruna in Sweden that representatives from the ice hotel, who were judging the competition for the first time, invited her to submit a design.

Her design is entitled Sleeping Inside a Passionate Thought and she will be heading off this week to spend two weeks working on the room.

Katarina said this will be unlike anything she has ever done before.

She said: "I have wanted to do it ever since the ice hotel first opened about 20 years ago."

Katarina said she never expected to be successful with her application and is now excited about the challenge of creating a whole room out of ice.

She will be supported by a team of experts in areas such as lighting and will be joining designers from all around the world working on the ice hotel.

Katarina said: "I'm really excited, it's a bit of a dream job and it's good to be out there for two weeks rather than just a few days.

"There's going to be an Iranian team there and a team from Hong Kong, it's going to be really exciting to meet all the different people as everyone has different education and ideas about art."

Katarina has been carving in snow for around 20 years but says working with ice on such a large project will create new challenges for here.

She said: "The physical stamina required will be like nothing else I have done."

Katarina said she can't wait to see her work finished and see the designs she has been working on for such a long time become an actual room in the ice hotel.