Born in 1951, Griselda Lessard Healy grew up in St. James, Long Island, New York. There she studied still-life and landscape painting with Paul Russotto before moving to Europe and later Canada, where she studied and worked primarily as a musician while never letting her painting work fall far from hand and mind. When Griselda returned to the USA in 1987, her focus moved primarily towards figure painting, sculpture, and drawing.
This renewed passion was pursued in Connecticut at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts with Dan Gheno and Deane Keller, followed by more figure painting study in New York City at the National Academy of Design with Mary Beth McKenzie and, at The Art Students League with Harvey Dinnerstein.
In 1997 Healy joined the Visual Arts Studio Program at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY. This was the beginning of her serious studio work, hiring models for figure projects, painting portraits from life, and experimenting with different mediums such as pastel, printmaking and clay sculpture. It was here that she completed her Staten Island Ferry Series. Aside from the on-going studio projects, Healy painted a series of plein air landscape paintings, inspired by Snug Harbor's magnificent architecture, gardens, botanical trees, and extraordinary waterfront.
In 2006 Healy relocated to Manhattan and now has a studio affiliated with the New York Residency and Studios Foundation (NARS) in Sunset Park Brooklyn, NY. The new location, new community of artists, and large studio space brought on new project ideas. A proposal for a project entitled "Figure in Motion" was accepted for a sponsorship by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Large charcoal scroll drawings and 13 connected door sized panel paintings were exhibited with performance in Manhattan and Staten Island. The overall project was inspired by Laurie De Vito's choreography and her company of dancers. The project has an interdisciplinary emphasis; painting, live performance, and music. The interdisciplinary aspect is still on going with ideas of implementing a media projection component and perhaps text/figure-movement in a theatrical context.
In 2007 Griselda joined the faculty at Wagner College where she teaches various art classes such as painting, drawing, color and design, "looking at and making art". Griselda also teaches painting and drawing at the Summer Studio Scholarship Program (SSSP) at the Snug Harbor Art Lab on Staten Island, NY. She is a private educator for teens and young adults preparing portfolio works for art school and college entry.
Over the years, Griselda has participated in various group shows in the tristate area, her solo exhibitions include: Art Lab Gallery, NY: Recent Works; Soho20 Gallery, NYC: people and context; The Edward Williams Gallery, Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ: Antr' Acte; The Staten Island Museum, NY, FERRY; Wagner College Union Gallery, Staten Island NY: Portrait and Figure Paintings; The Edward Williams Gallery, Fairleigh Dickinson University NJ, Entr’ Acte; Roslyn Library Gallery, NY: The Lively Eye; Dance New Amsterdam Gallery, Figure in Motion, Drawings; Union Gallery Wagner College, Staten Island NY: Exhibition/Performance of Figure in Motion.