"…few painters have been practicing musicians as well. And here it is that Margaret Shields, a distinguished pianist and teacher in her own right, has broken the mould…It is obvious that Margaret Shields has devised a completely new category all her own. Hers is an art of figures in motion…and of the bringing together of oddly assorted, and assembled, personages…Since all her paintings tend to be very literary -if at the same time deliberately semi-literate - one tends to read them rather like picture stories. They have as much content to be explored as for example Ford Madox Brown's famous, four-letter, composition WORK…And as you will see I am grateful for it."
(W E Johnson, Arts Review)

"For all that she has achieved over the years she looks so impossibly young that I can only surmise that she started life as something of an infant prodigy."
(W E Johnson, Northern Echo)

"The first time I saw one of Margaret Shields' paintings…Its eye-catching originality drew me inside and I made a mental note that one day I must interview this artist…Then…Vince Rea - no-nonsense director of Jarrow's Bede Gallery - rang…"The woman's a star. Get yourself along there," he advised - or words to that effect!…a body of work which could have gallery owners scuffling like bargain seekers at a jumble sale.

…the pictures have a voice of their own and don't lend themselves to easy descriptions."
(David Whetstone, The Journal)

"The Queen* and Dire Straits' Guy Fletcher own paintings by award-winning Cleveland Artist Margaret Shields…And it is easy to see why her striking images of Teesside, industry & people, have gained national critical acclaim. Cleveland is imprinted in her mind and the sights and sounds of the area are reflected in her work."
(Colin Robertson, Evening Gazette)

"…a singular body of work characterized by … lyrical execution, a highly developed and atmospheric use of colour, and a rigorous attention to pictorial structure. Perhaps the most compelling feature of these distinctive paintings is their stubborn resistance to categorization…Margaret Shields is more likely to quote from herself than from other painters…In general the paintings succeed because Margaret Shields has an excellent, and very traditional eye for capturing the expressive gestures of gesture, form and movement … imagery … derived from largely mundane and unexceptional sources - proving the point that actuality is usually stranger than the artificially contrived."
(Stephanie Brown)

"…Margaret Shields, whose work opens windows into her mind and our imagination ... She creates places for us to visit where anything can happen if, like her, we have the courage to let it…incident-full watercolours where every mark … is as precisely right as this consummate draughtsman intends it to be."
(Mary Sara, Yorkshire Post)

"…a narrative element appears to be present in all her work and also a considerable mastery of the forces she employs to express her extremely individual ideas. At no time is she less than convincing in her image making. The human figure also features in almost all of her work and it is exciting to see such power and vigour employed in her recent work and such deftness of handling as evidenced in her earlier oils and recent water colours.

The messages contained in Margaret's work may in turn be disturbing, exhilarating or complex but the directness of handling and confidence in dealing with a wide range of pictorial problems contribute greatly toward giving us access to her feelings and ideas.
There seems to be no final attainable plateau for Margaret; her work continues to evolve and reveal vistas of interior as well as exterior perceptions."
(Peter M Hicks)

"… a stunning use of colour is employed."
(C P, Darlington & Stockton Times)

"The first thing that strikes the viewer at this exhibition is the vigorous quality of Margaret Shields' painting style.
It may be that living at blustery Saltburn for more than 20 years has rubbed off artistically, since her experience of the weather seems to have translated into a gusting, expressive way of sweeping paint across surfaces, so one can almost feel the power of wind and waves in her pictures of vessels as streaky blurs passing off the east coast amid swirls of colour, or of figures on the beach leaning into the draught.

The paintings fall into two categories.
There are small sketches in oils or watercolour, on torn-off pieces of paper, which are like accurate, quickly-executed reportage of mostly coastal sights, resonating with immediacy and atmosphere.
Then there are the larger works, some of the sea, others of streets in her native Middlesbrough, also vigorously painted, but with a more edgy quality that leaves the viewer feeling unsettled.
Trying to pin this down by close scrutiny, one discerns that perspective and scale are not quite right. In particular, figures appear to be too small for their surroundnings, and in the townscapes, the vantage point is at a tilting angle with the buildings tall, blank and weighty.

In Skateboarding under the A66, for example, a crouching teenager is almost insignificant beneath the sweeping arc of concrete that occupies two thirds of the picture; the perspective of the angular struts is distorted, mannerist, so they appear to be receding and rushing outwards at the same time, a giddying effect which may be how a speeding skateboarder feels.

Human beings are dwarfed by their environment, but do not appear constrained. On the contrary, people are everywhere busy doing something - lads fast-cycling around a fountain in Albert Park, couples talking, dogs being walked on the beach, shoppers striding out, a surfer about to crash into a wave; even the one solitary figure in the populous street in Transporter is caught about to take a drag on his cigarette and looking directly out of the picture.
Within these energetic, colourful paintings, people look vital; like the ships, on the move."
(Pru Farrier, Darlington & Stockton Times)

*N.B. the Queen does not in fact own one of Margaret's paintings - see 'Profile' page.