Born in Shropshire, Oulton studied in the late 1970s at Saint Martin's School of Art before going on to the Royal College of Art.
Oulton's work is essentially abstract though her early work often resembles rocky landscapes. Later works, often executed in a thick impasto, are abstract compositions with complicated and carefully worked surfaces.
A number of Oulton's later works use multiple repeated images, often with slight variations between the repititions.
In 1987, Oulton was nominated for the Turner Prize.