Artist Profile

William Zimmer of The New York Times described award-winning artist Sheila Finnigan's work as "immediately appealing." Cornelia Seckel of Art Time Journal wrote: "Powerful work!" Her work was featured in the book "New American Paintings", published by Open Studios Press, as a result of a competition juried by James Rondeau, Curator, The Art Institute of Chicago. She won Best in Show from the Hunter Museum of American Art and has participated in many international juried exhibitions including one juried by Donald Kuspit.

Sheila Finnigan earned a BFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco and both an MA and MFA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois. She also studied with the renowned artist Ed Paschke.

The artist says, "My paintings are intended to provoke thought and emotion in the Expressionist tradition. I use a variety of media: tempera, oil, acrylic, ink, pastel, pencil and gouache. I often portray a narrative of figures from either the past or the present, and I often reference paintings from artists of past eras. The viewer is thus able to draw a multitude of connections including historic, artistic and personal. I often set these narratives in a black field to create a timeless dream-like quality."

Sheila Finnigan's work for a one-person exhibition "Georgie-Porgy" at Pleiades Gallery, in New York, NY was created in the manner of Jacques Louis David's chaise portrait of "Madame Recamier." Finnigan showed three large paintings that depict Laura Bush ("Let Them Eat Cookies"), founding father George Washington, and a painting of George W. Bush as "George III", pictured above. This exhibition was reviewed in Gallery & Studio magazine by Ed McCormack, who said: "Sheila Finnigan has a painterly finesse... and wry post-Pop irony that sets her work apart."