Shirley Foote studied at The West of England College of Art and worked in ceramics, which she practiced for over 20 years until she started painting full time in 1990.

Most of her work is loosely based on landscape. Growing up in rural Wiltshire on the edge of Salisbury Plain left her with a love of rolling hills, wide open spaces and big skies. Other influences are as varied as rusty metal, manhole
covers, old plaster walls, cracks in pavements and patched up road surfaces offer endless stimuli.

Travelling through France, Portugal and mostly Spain each year for several years has offered masses of visual images stored subliminally which surface only when she starts to push paint on the canvas.

Shirley lives and works in West Cornwall.

“From an early age I have always drawn and been visually aware of shapes, lines, cracks in cement, pavements and spaces in the landscape. These images are stored subliminally and now affect my work. Despite coming from a background in ceramics, I have always painted ‘in my head’. I have no preconceived idea what my paintings will be. I just paint - it happens.”