Ann Shelton was born in Timaru, New Zealand. She currently lives and works in Wellington city. Her work is exhibited on a regular basis in public galleries, artist run spaces and dealer galleries within New Zealand and internationally. Shelton's work has been seen in China, Australia, Italy, England, Poland and North America. In 2007 Shelton's major project a library to scale toured New Zealand and Australia and in August 2006 it was the awarded the Trust Waikato Contemporary Art Award. a library to scale is accompanied by the artist book a new skin, published by the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

In 2002 Shelton completed her Masters, at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. More recently Rim Books published her second book Public Places. In 2004 she was the Govett-Brewster New Zealand Artist in Residence, during that time Shelton produced the solo museum show a kind of sleep and completed once more from the street, a project presented at Starkwhite. Recent group shows include Collect/project,  at the Adam Art Gallery, curated by Tina Barton and Earth Matters at the Auckland City Art Gallery, curated by Natasha Conland.

Shelton's first book Redeye (Rim Books, 1997) was launched at Artspace in Auckland, the accompanying exhibition toured New Zealand. Redeye was then re-published internationally, in that same year, by Dewi Lewis Publishing, England. Shelton is represented by Starkwhite and Paul McNamara Gallery. Her works are featured in public and private collections in New Zealand and overseas, these include the Govett-Brewster, Te Papa Tongarewa and the Chartwell Collection. Shelton lectures in Fine Art and Photography at Massey University in Wellington.