Bickley-Green's long career began in the 1960s with her large stain paintings. These works were featured in exhibitions at the Henri Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, and in shows with the most visible names of the Washington Color School, including Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, and Paul Reed. A professor at East Carolina University, her research and many publications explore the interaction of visual media and our personal and social identities.
Bickley-Green's recent artworks were created while she listened to news broadcasts on the radio. She began to paint small scenes or symbols of news events on the sidebars of the paintings, placing the paintings in a social context.