On leaving school Finola Graham went to Paris where she spent the next seven years studying art. She attended La Grande Chaumiere Painting School and then won a scholarship to the École Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts with a high enough standard to qualify for additional funding towards her keep. Her first exhibition was at Maison des Beaux-Arts in 1969. On her return to Dublin in 1970 she took up a teaching post and painted in her own studio. In 1977 she had a show at Project Arts Centre and The Peacock Gallery in 1978 after which she returned to Paris for post-graduate study at the École des Beaux-Arts. After a six month French government scholarship, during which she worked in Venice, she had an exhibition there of engravings in Segno Grafico.

Finola returned to Ireland in 1980 and set up home in County Clare. Since then she has exhibited regularly throughout Ireland; she was represented in the Oxford Festival of Arts in 1989 and at the Liverpool Biennale in 2003.

She had a solo exhibition of paintings at The Norman Gallery in 2005. To see drawings by Finola Graham contact the Gallery.