Mandell is a well-known American-born painter living in Nova Scotia. He was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts in 1942 and received his BFA fromthe Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in 1966. He obtained an MFA at the Penn State University in Philadelphia in 1968. Following graduation, Roy exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions in Boston,Needham and Greenfield in Massachusetts. He emigrated to Canada in 1972.

Roy Mandell taught art, as well as working as a fine artist in his early years. In 1981, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia gave him a retrospective solo travelling show, following which he had a number of solo exhibitions with the Kastel Gallery in Montreal. He is currently living and working in Wedgeport, NS.