Sheila Rennick’s works are piled heavily with a range of paradoxes and oxymorons. With humour and hints of pathos, she creates what could be described as pitiful scenes where the protagonists jostle in their own personal turmoil and grapple to exist within the realms they inhabit. The works are vistas into both ludicrous reveries and personal experiences to comment on societal hierarchies and the patriarchy. A recurrent theme in this body of work is that of couples – that are at once engrossed and repelled by each other. In one matrimonial scene the figures expel tongues and vomit, prophetic of their future life together. The groom’s fate is heightened in the tendrilous entrapment of the encroaching stems from the floral arrangements that choke his neck binding him into this martial grip.
Extract from an accompanying text by Séamus McCormack

Sheila Rennick graduated from The National College of Art and Design in Dublin with a degree in Fine Art painting in 2004. On graduating she was co-recipient of the prestigious CAP foundation award. Rennick went on to do an MA in painting at St. Martins College, London in 2006. On graduating, Rennick was one of 30 artists selected from across the UK for the notable Jerwood Contemporary painting exhibition London. Rennick was awarded runner up at the Marmite Painting Prize 2016. Recent solo and group exhibitions include a solo presentation at London Art Fair with Kevin Kavanagh, Islington (2023), Neon Orchids, Commonage Projects, London (2022), Screaming On Mute, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2021), Generation 2022 New Irish Painting, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny (2022), Rain Wetting Thirst, Lewisham Art House, London (2019), Pretty Fleshy Paintings, with Amanda Doran at Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin (2019), Gift, A.P.T Gallery, London (2018), Paper Cuts, Saatchi Gallery, London (2018).