Glenys Brookbanks is a former primary school teacher who later completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts. Her first solo exhibition was held in 1988 at RKS Art, Tāmaki Makaurau, and since then she has been a frequent exhibitor throughout Aotearoa. Her work was included in A Very Peculiar Practice (1995), a seminal exhibition at what is now City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, and Skirted Abstraction (1996), a show devoted to work by women abstract painters.