Sherleelah Jones is a native to Columbus, Ohio. She began studying art at a young age. By age 8 she was exploring creative expression through colored pencils and watercolor. She earned her BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design (2007), where she specialized in video, film, and animation. Sherleelah joined Blockfort studios in 2017 where she was a resident artist. She has since relocated to Delaware, Ohio, where she works as an independent artist and instructor. Her mediums include watercolor, digital paintings, and mixed media. Her creative career has included graphic design, children’s book illustration, and film. She is the founder of Neon Alchemy, a company specializing in creative meditation.

Sherleelah has spent her career exploring the intersection of myth and the human experience. She spent countless hours as a little girl, reading stories about heroines of old and watching anything with a fantasy plot. As a child, she found the subtleties between dark and light captivating. There was an ever-present spectrum in all that she consumed, a variance of color and extremes. The potential for humans to embody both innocence and corruption was reflected in everything she read or experienced.

A lifetime fascination with fairy tales, mythology, and historical stories became essential inspiration for Sherleelah’s work. The exploration of her own narrative helped her push beyond personal and cultural boundaries. She studied video and animation in partnership with traditional mediums to expand her expression. Storytelling works in unison with her creative work. Believing that we are all drawn to personal symbols, Sherleelah’s work captures the presence of icons and the metaphysical suspended in vivid color. Her paintings invite serendipitous symbols to collide with lucid action. At its core, her work is a meditation of the essence of our own magic, and the ways we bind or expand our inherent forces.