A native of Dublin, Sheila Naughton is an Honours graduate of NCAD and Ecole Cantonale des Beaux Arts et d'Arts Appliqueés Lausanne, Switzerland. Having worked in industry and education for over twenty five years, Sheila is now a full-time artist, exhibiting widely in Ireland, north and south, including in RHA shows and her work is in several national and private collections.

A residency at The Custom House Studios and Gallery in Westport, Ireland, in 2010, was pivotal in developing her interest in contemporary abstract drawing and painting.

Drawing with brushes, using mainly watercolour and gouache, the immediacy and fluidity of water-based materials gives a freedom and spontaneity of expression that is unique to these materials. The mark of the human hand is apparent in the work and is important to her - something individual to human identity when individuality is in crisis.

“The fundamental language of painting and drawing remains simply one of engagement between the artist and the viewer on an individual human level. I am interested in this one to one communication. Each individual will take for themselves what they find interesting in an abstract work. It is open to a myriad of interpretations. My aspiration is to create a feeling that lingers and stays with one, something that makes us look at the world differently and that makes us richer for that experience.”