Roger O Reilly studied Art in Dublin, Ireland before pursuing a career in commercial art. In 2005 he took time off to concentrate full time on painting, building on a reputation already established through exhibitions over the previous six years. 

  His work has been exhibited in  Switzerland, Ireland and the UK, Holland and France where he  is represented in the permanent  collection of the Musee D’histoire Contemporaine in Paris.

In recent years he returned to the world of commercial illustration painting the lighthouses around our shores, which he collected into the bestselling book, “Lighthouses of Ireland”, winning the An Post Irish Published book of the year award in 2018. In 2024 he followed this by publishing “Legendary lighthouses of Britain”, a compendium of over 100 illustrated lighthouses around the shores of Scotland, England and Wales.

The project of painting all thing maritime brought him back to his roots near the tidal River Boyne and  informed his current project exploring works on canvas, with a special focus on the estuarine landscapes of shifting ground, uncovered memories and the inevitability of change.