Grainne Dowling was born in Ballina, Co. Mayo. She studied ceramics, sculpture and painting at the Crawford College of Art and Design.  During her time at the Crawford College she took a year out to live in Vienna, Austria, where she studied painting at the Danube Academy, and was lucky to be exposed to the work of many wonderful painters in the galleries of Vienna. She fell in love with painting there. Returning to Cork she completed her degree with a 1st class honours in fine art/painting in 2007.

Since 2007 she has lived close to the Curragh in Co. Kildare. With its wide open spaces and huge, ever changing skies, it provides much inspiration!  Grainne also spends long periods in the West of Ireland on the Island of Inisbofin in Connemara,  most of her work to date has been inspired by its wild untamed and renowned beauty. 

She has taken part in group shows, joint and solo exhibitions at the Vanguard, Lavitt, and Shaw galleries in Cork City.  The artist has  been invited to show annually with Cork and Dunlavin arts societies and was invited  along with Brian McGuire to show her work at the Gerard Manley Hopkins festival in Newbridge in 2010 and 2013.

In August 2014 she had a very successful exhibition in Gothenburg, Sweden, bringing her images of Inisbofin to the Island of Åstol.

Her work has found a home in many collections, in the USA , Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Ireland.