Elizabeth O'Reilly received her MFA from Brooklyn College, New York, and her B.Ed from the National University of Ireland. She has participated in residencies at the Ballinglen Foundation, Ireland, the Ucross Foundation, Wyoming, the Ragdale Foundation, Illinois, and has recieved numerous awards, including a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant, a Charles G. Shaw award for Painting and a Peter S.Reed Foundation painting award. Her work is in many collections including the Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ireland, and the Ogunquit museum in Maine. A documentary on her work, Ealaiontóir Thar Sáile (An Artist Abroad) was shown on network TV in Ireland.

Irish-born, but Brooklyn based since 1986, Elizabeth O'Reilly responds in her work to the tug between her Irish homeland and her adopted America.

O'Reilly divides her time between her studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and her home on the North Fork of Long Island, though she paints in Maine and New Jersey. She switchies gears from plein air oils to watercolors as well as collages done in watercolor, based on motifs from the Gowanus canal. The collages are an indoor motif in inclement weather.

O'Reilly is represented by the George Billis gallery in Chelsea, NY, and the Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland Maine.