John Shinnors was born in Limerick in 1950 and studied drawing and painting at the Limerick School of Art & Design from 1970 to 1972. He still lives and works in the city.
Since the 1980s, his work has become increasingly abstract, developing from early representational oil paintings rendered in rich chiaroscuro to a reduced palette of black and white that on close inspection often reveals areas of brightly coloured underpainting. Scarecrows, lighthouses, kites, clotheslines and skunks feature frequently in his work, allowing Shinnors to explore dramatic contrasts of light and dark while retaining a subtle colouration that compliments his energetic brushstrokes and bold compositions that play with perspective and depth.
John Shinnors has taken part in many solo and group exhibitions in Ireland since the early 1980s and has won several awards for his work. In 1997 he was the subject of Split Image, an RTÉ television documentary by Michael Garvey. A member of Aosdána, he has also been involved in the promotion of the visual arts in Ireland through the Shinnors Scholarship for an MA in Curatorial Studies with LIT, Limerick School of Art & Design and Limerick City Gallery of Art, and the Shinnors Drawing Award at LCGA.
He has shown with Taylor Galleries since the 1980s and his work is represented in both private and public collections in Ireland and abroad, including the collections of The Arts Council, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, GPA, the Contemporary Irish Art Society and Banks Trust.