Painter, Shirley Amos was born in Sydney in 1949 and was immediately placed into the Strathallan Cripple Children’s Home. Born with the genetic disorder, arthrogyposis, Amos spent her whole childhood living in and out of various children’s homes and hospitals as a result of her condition. At the age of 20 she moved to Queensland where she was employed as a cannery worker for Golden Circle. She has also had a fishing licence and worked for ATN 7.
Amos returned to NSW in 1990, living in the Foster/Taree districts until 1996 when she relocated to Coffs Harbour. Amos spent the next decade in Coffs Harbour before moving to Tasmania where she was still residing in 2007. Amos began painting when convalescing from an operation on a perforated ulcer in 1989. Her first painting was on a Masonite board that she sawed from the back of a bookshelf. During this early period she also painted on floor tiles, bathroom tiles, coasters, rocks, anything that, according to Amos, “had a flat surface”. An artist member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Cooperative, she first exhibited with them in 1993 in a group show titled 'Sayin’ something’ and has exhibited in every annual members exhibition since then.
In 1998 her work, Stolen Children was part of the touring exhibition of the National Indigenous Heritage Art Award and in 2001 she was the first Aboriginal artist to have a solo show at Gosford Regional Gallery – 'Yesterday and Today’s – New Paintings by Shirley Amos’. Gosford Regional Art Gallery has described her work as “dot and line style in acrylics”. Amos had a second solo show in 2001, 'Shirley Amos – 30 pieces’ at Boomalli in Sydney.
In 2004 she joined the Indigenous Community Volunteers (ICV) as a volunteer artist where she has her work included in their permanent collection. The ICV has its national office in Canberra. Amos considers her paintings to be “meaningful representations of the pull of 60,000 years of our past and a white society demanding we conform to a new social standard. Many of my paintings translate the power of the land and its inhabitants, into a visual art form so those who do not know our legends can understand them.”
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