Irene Sanderson graduated in Fine Art from the University of Reading and after working as a graphic artist in London spent some time travelling overland to Japan. She had a studio there and was taken as pupil by Mushin, Master of the Shijo School Monitoring Graduate Student at Kyoto Municipal University of Fine Art. She exhibited in Tokyo during that period.

On returning to the UK she became a lecturer at City University, London followed by another spell in Kyoto, Japan where she was a lecturer at Seika University of the Arts.

Since then she has worked at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield College of Art and at Leeds Metropolitan University.

She moved to Cumbria in 1983 and has since taken part in numerous group and solo shows in that region and further a field including at Penrith Museum, the City of London Festival and the Ice House, Holland Park.