Jennifer Hickey

Jennifer Hickey lives and works in Mayo. She studied Ceramics at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin and her work has been exhibited widely in Ireland and abroad. She is drawn to the ethereal and delicate properties of her chosen medium – porcelain – and has developed a unique and intricate approach to making.

Living in the beauty and isolation of the West of Ireland has had an important impact on her work, allowing her to observe and appreciate the influence of the changing seasons as they pass. She is drawn to the beauty and subtlety of the natural world, and her work poetically investigates the rhythms and movement of nature and her relationship with it. Each of her sculptures is made from thousands of tiny, wafer-thin fired porcelain pieces. These are made by hand-working the porcelain to a fine, almost paper-thin finish. Texture is then applied before each fragile piece is pierced with a needle and then high fired in the kiln. After firing, the pieces are sewn onto a tulle fabric over a porcelain sculptural form. It takes months of hand-sewing to complete each work and the slowness, repetition and ritual inherent in this making are essential to her practice.

Jennifer Hickey applied for a Golden Fleece Award to invest in new studio equipment, including a new kiln that would allow her to increase the scale of her work for exhibition. Funding would also allow her to buy the time needed to research and develop new forms inspired by time spent drawing and photographing in the Wild Nephin National Park, to experiment with glazes, stains and oxides, and to introduce colour into her sculpture.