Sheila Norgate was born in 1950 in the heart of downtown Toronto in the back seat of her uncle’s late model Buick. Like most girls of her vintage, she was herded towards all things domestic, and save for an incident in grade eleven when she convinced authorities to allow her to drop home economics in favour of commercial design, she displayed no particular aptitude towards the arts. After high school Norgate drifted with the rest of her grad class flotsam into University where she learned how to smoke a pipe and protest social injustice. Two years later and still not actually qualified to do anything, she assumed an entry level position with a major bank and before you could say “accidental and bland career” one such thing yawned open before her. She soon crossed the country by train and settled on the West Coast.

By 1983 the unlived life was nipping at her heels like a badly behaved poodle and Norgate was forced to take a leave from banking to recover from major abdominal surgery. While recuperating she bought herself a set of cheap watercolours and embarked on a course of serious dabbling. In those small hard tablets of pigment, she began to locate a voice, her voice. She enrolled in a local art school but dropped out after only a brief stint, convinced that she needed to find her own way. Since then she has done just that.

Today Norgate’s energetic, inconographic, and quirky works on canvas can be found in galleries throughout North America and in private collections around the world. She makes her home on Gabriola Island, BC.