Michelle Hickey is a visual artist and maker. A native of Clare her career began as a typesetter/graphic designer in the print industry. She exercised her entrepreneurial skills progressing on to running her own sewing business whilst studying a City & Guilds HDip with the Mallow College of Design and Tailoring. She was a recipient of various awards such as Best Design in the Evening Wear Category and Overall Most Creative Designer of the Year in her final year.
In order to develop her creative ability Hickey returned to full time education in the Limerick School of Art and Design in 2017 to study an Honours Degree in Fine Art specialising in Sculpture and Combined Media.
She works mainly in abstract form by injecting meaning into material to create narrative and the subject matter influences the type of medium she uses and the outcome of her work. Social and political issues are important in her work, she likes to know what's happening around her especially in her own country. She finds beauty in repetition in her practice and she likes to piece lots of the same thing together until she is satisfied she has reached a conclusion. By working this way, Hickey aims to develop a tacit knowledge of materials and she allows the material itself to become part of her creative process.
World renowned Columbian artist Doris Salcedo was very influential to her during her studies. Hickey was part of a group discussion with Salcedo at IMMA during her exhibition Acts of Mourning in 2019.
Hickey's first public group exhibition MIXTAPE was held in the Tipperary Arts Centre in 2020. Using themes from nature, her video was described as “a blue print of the world from outer space”. She was part of a group who performed a sound improvised arrangement at the closing.
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00353 86 8140309