Louise Shields is a painter and collage artist based in Gilroy, California. Her work exalts the beauty of the marine environment and celebrates the strength and resilience of women from all backgrounds. Bold hues of fiery red and deep ocean blues belie Shield’s fierce passion for life and social justice–an effort she undertakes daily in her role as a Deputy Conservator with the Santa Clara County Public Guardian's Office. Her work brings awareness to historical events and people who made significant contributions to the perception and treatment of underprivileged communities, namely African American, Latina, and Native American women. At the same time, Shields promotes unity and solidarity through her paintings. In her Conscious Coffee series she used coffee grains and liquid coffee to represent different shades of skin tones. Coffee acts as an all-inclusive medium that promotes camaraderie and conscious conversations all over the world. “I procure purposeful art that illuminates beauty in the form of hope during times of struggle,” she says. “Moved by the challenges and triumphs of women, specifically both past and present, I display art that represents harmony and peace.”

Shields participated in several group exhibitions in the Bay Area. She has been a board member with the Gilroy Center for the Arts for the past eleven years. There, in 2014, she produced the first Black History Month Art and Cultural Exhibit, which she has since curated twice more.