Jeroo Roy was born in Bombay, India. She first studied at the JJ School of Art and continued her studies at the London College of Printing.

Later she went on to work as a designer on magazines and as an illustrator of children’s books, two of which were both written and illustrated by her.

In 1982, Jeroo became involved in the building trade and for the next 6 years during which she was a maintenence builder, she continued with her illustration and painting. She then started her own company and became one of the first female building contractor. This meant that the painting aspect of her life was put on hold, whilst she took on the demanding task of establishing herself as a female contractor in what was a tough world to break into.

In December 2000, at the height of her building career, she decided to retire from the trade and get back to painting. In September 2001, selected pieces of her work were displayed at the Indian Painters in the UK and India exhibition put together by Visual Art. In June’ 2002, she had a very successful one person show at the Nehru Centre in central London and in 2003, she was part of a group show organised by Visual Arts, at Bharati Vidhya Bhuvan.

In 2004, she had a one person show at the Light Gallery in London, titled When More is Less. The exhibition graphically showed torture perpetrated against women everywhere, and how the girl child is at the most cruel end of violence everywhere.

2004 was the year of the girl child in India and Jeroo's acclaimed paintings were themed on dowry related deaths, tortures and suicides; female infanticide and foeticide, FGM (female genital mutilation), selling of the girl child for prostitution and honour killings. Her exhibition success lay in the way it arose positive action to tackle endless violence towards women.

Jeroo’s aim is to create an awareness in every individual who views the paintings, with the hope that in the near future others will be instrumental in averting yet more violence and atrocities.

At her exhibition titled What Honour, Whose Honour, Jeroo was interviewed by the BBC and they had a BBC Online article titled Prick the viewers’ nerves. This article got the attention of the New Scotland Yard and she was invited to exhibit her paintings at their conference on HRV (Honour Related Violence) at the New Scotland Yard in September 2004. In October 2004, she was invited to exhibit in Stockholm, Sweden by Kvinnoforum at their International conference on HRV.

In February 2005, she exhibited relevant paintings for the Metropolitan Police/Home Office conference on Forced Marriages, and in March 2005, at a two day International Conference on HBV (Honour Related Violence).

At present Jeroo is involved in a series of paintings on children titled Working Children and Children under Siege. Jeroo wants to work with the younger generation to create awareness and to use her art as a catalyst for social awareness and change.

www.jerooroy.com