Elizabeth Cope was born in 1952 in County Kildare, Ireland, and has lived and worked for much of her life in County Kilkenny. She studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, the Sir John Cass School of Art, and the Chelsea School of Art in London during the 1970s, a formative decade that shaped her approach to painting. During this period, she also spent time living and working in Madrid and Paris, experiences that broadened her artistic outlook and exposed her to a range of international influences. She has exhibited extensively in Ireland and internationally, with major solo shows in Kilkenny, Toronto, Carlow, Bologna, Ontario, Dublin, London, New York, São Paulo, and Switzerland. Her 2022–23 retrospective at VISUAL Carlow, The Palpable Bump on the Bridge of the Nose, charted the development of her practice. She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions, including The Naked Truth at the Crawford Art Gallery, and annual shows at both the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts. Her work was selected for IMMA’s 2025 exhibition Staying with the Trouble, which explored ecology, feminism, and social engagement. Her paintings are held in several public and corporate collections—among them the Contemporary Irish Art Society, Dublin City University, the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, the University of Limerick, Allied Irish Banks, and Bank of Ireland—reflecting her longstanding significance within Irish art.