Shelley Theodore became an artist in psychoanalysis when she started to draw and paint for the first time. She qualified as a social worker in Australia then took up studies in Fine Art in London. She completed a bachelor degree (hons) in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College University of London in 1995 followed by MA studies in Visual Art at Camberwell College of Art University of London in 2012. Since her selection for the Jerwood Drawing prize Exhibition in 2012 and Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2013 she has exhibited widely. Most recently she was featured Artists in Special Issue 2022, Magazine 43, Hong Kong and a Lens Culture Editors Pick, Art Photography 2024.

Shelley works with both the still and moving image. She has a special interest in contemporary photography. Loss and mourning are themes in her work. Often it is the unspectacular that draws her in. Since 2019 she has photographed mannequins. She states that the mannequin is a reference to the feminine and ultimately to herself. Shelley works on the photograph through repetition and layering, photocopying and drawing onto the surface onto the head, face and or upper body of the image. A constant in many of her works is a photocopied image of a curtain, repeated and joined together to make a whole.

She recently moved from London where she lived since 1988 and is now based in Barcelona.