Sheila Wallis

Artist in Residence 2009-2010
 

Sheila Wallis comes from Derry, N.Ireland where she lived until she was 16. Born at the height of the Troubles, her work is partly inspired by themes of internal and external conflicts and the vulnerability and exposure of the existential human condition. She has chosen to express these themes by painting the body. In her early life, this was a form which she was prohibited from exploring by the moral strictures of a Catholic upbringing, yet her builder father's abilities with his hands and his talent for creation is her earliest inspiration.

Self-portraiture was born out of pragmatism. Financially constrained, she began to use herself as subject. The work acquired another dimension when she discovered a freedom to present anything she wished without making an unwitting sitter uncomfortable. It is important to her that the paintings convey the vulnerability of exposure without being exploitative or cruel. Compassion, empathy, humanity and honesty are the qualities that are crucial to her, be it in her art or in her professional capacity as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities.

She won the 2009 Winsor and Newton Watts Painting Prize, the Guildford Arts/Clyde and Co. Bursary and is shortlisted for the 2009 Threadneedle Figurative Prize.

www.zooqoo.com/sheilawallis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETqzOiOfpVk
http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/whatson/single/555663/1
http://www.threadneedleprize.com/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observation...