Sherry O'Neill Bio

Sherry O'Neill Biography

A native Floridian, I retired to Charlotte seven years ago. As a painter, I am deeply inspired by the change of seasons in our area—lavish springtime with its spectrum of colors, lush, green summers, a more subdued fall of reds and golds, and my favorite time of year, winter, as the earth slumbers in shades of gray, white, and black providing a perfect backdrop for the sculptural effect of leafless trees. Although abstract, my artwork is influenced by these undulations of nature. I began my career with oil paint, moved to watercolor, then acrylics and water-based mediums. Today, I work with acrylic paint, ink, Venetian plaster, mortar, charcoal, and graphite in an experimental, non-objective way. Over the years I have painted realistically, portraits, landscapes, seascapes, gradually evolving to an abstract style. I have found this intuitive, seat-of-your-pants way of painting is much more suited to my temperament. 

Two years ago, I began to fulfill a life-long desire to write. My memoir, STRONG AT THE BROKEN PLACES, a story of my life from birth to thirty, was published in September 2021. It is currently available on Amazon Books, where it is garnering great reviews, as well as through Barnes and Noble Bookstores.

I have been painting and making art since the age of nine. I was on the faculty of the prestigious Cornell Museum of Art School in Delray Beach, Florida for twelve years teaching collage, painting, and composition. I traveled extensively in the US and abroad teaching workshops on painting and collage. My artwork is in collections all over the world and can also been seen locally at SOZO FINE ART GALLERY and ART SOURCE FINE ART in Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as ANN LEA FINE ART in Cashiers, North Carolina.