Catherine Headley gained a BA (Hons) at Bath Academy of Art in 1977,  under the tutelage of Adrian Heath. She has exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition nine times.  Her prints have been exhibited across the Uk. In the last twenty years Headley has made regular visits to Brisons Veor, the artist's retreat on Cape Cornwall, from where she draws most of her inspiration.

Headley is a member of the Leicester Society of Artists and Leicester Print Workshop.  She runs a successful contemporary painting group in Stamford Arts Centre and has a painting studio in the building.  She does her printmaking in a print studio in her garden in Rutland.