Born on Merseyside in 1947, David Greenall left school at the age of fifteen and worked in the fishing and building industries before taking up painting in his late twenties. In 1982, Greenall began a year-long foundation course at Norwich School of Art, followed by a fine art printmaking course at Winchester School of Art, receiving a BA Honours Degree at the end of three years in 1986. In 1991 Greenall, with his wife the painter Ruth O’Dell, moved to their present home in the village of South Dell on the Isle of Lewis.

Greenall's painting and drawings are infused with a knowledge and understanding of light and its happy accidents. Mixing his own colours from raw pigments and blending mediums such as wax, resin, oil and egg tempera, he produces works of great vigour presented with an unerring draughtsmanship.