Helen O’Toole is an Irish-born abstract painter known for large-scale contemporary oil paintings. Born in County Mayo, Ireland, she studied art in Ireland before earning her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. O’Toole has exhibited in national and international contemporary art exhibitions for over three decades and has completed residencies in the United States, Ireland, and Italy. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Award, and other major visual arts honors. Based in Seattle, she is the Floyd & Delores Jones Endowed Chair in the Arts at the University of Washington.