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Lisa Milroy was born in Vancouver, Canada, and lives and works in London. 

Still life is at the heart of Milroy’s practice. In the 1980s her paintings featured ordinary objects depicted against an off-white background. Subsequently her imagery expanded to include depictions of objects within settings, as well as landscape, architecture, people and the body. As her approaches to still life diversified, so did her manner of painting, giving rise to a range of stylistic innovations. Throughout her practice, Milroy has been fascinated by the relation between stillness and movement, and the nature of making and looking at painting.

Milroy won First Prize in the John Moores Painting Prize 1989, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2005. Milroy was Artist Trustee at Tate from 2013 to 2017 and Liaison Trustee to the National Gallery from 2015 to 2017. She has taught at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, since 2009. Milroy’s work is held in many public collections, including Tate, Frac Occitanie Montpellier, France, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA and Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘If the Shoe Fits/Bien dans ses pompes’, Frac Occitainie Montpellier, France, 2021; ‘Exchange – Paintings by Lisa Milroy', White Conduit Projects, London, UK, 2021; ‘Taking the Side of Things’, m2 Gallery, London, UK, 2020–2021; ‘Same and Different – Paintings by Lisa Milroy’, One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya, 2021; ‘Wearing and Staring: YANAGI Miwa and Lisa MILROY’, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan, 2020; ‘Ensemble/Together – Paintings by Lisa Milroy’, FRAC Occitanie Montpellier, France, 2020; ‘Here & There – Paintings by Lisa Milroy’, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, UK, 2018.

In 2015 Milroy set up Hands On Art Workshops, contributing to Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR’s Instant Network Schools digital learning programme. Hands On Art Workshops engages primary and secondary school students in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya in practical art workshops, which Milroy delivers from London through video conference and mobile phone messaging. In 2020 artist Stephanie Nebbia joined Hands On as Deputy Director. Milroy travels to Kakuma Refugee Camp annually to deliver Hands On Art Workshops, working with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Hands On Art Workshops is supported by Vodafone Foundation, UNHCR, Colart, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and Windle International Kenya.

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