Gwen Heeney
Presenting Artist
The International Architectural
Ceramics Symposium

Biography

Gwen Heeney (1952-) is a ceramic sculptor and lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton. She trained in Ceramics at Bristol Polytechnic of Art and Design (1971-1974) and gained an MA from the Royal College of Art, under the tutelage of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1987-1989). She ran her own ceramic studio in Cardiff and Mid-Wales (1977-1986) and established the Ginkgo Clay partnership, specializing in garden ornaments (1984).

She became involved with architectural, public commissions, working for three months in Sweden with the ceramic sculptor Ulla Viotti (1988). The following year Heeney became research fellow in architectural ceramics at the South Glamorgan Institute, Cardiff where she continued as a lecturer until 1997. Her large-scale garden pieces demonstrate a sense of empathy with the environment and they often have a distinct function, either as seating or to enclose a space. Public commissions include Seats in the Woods, a collaborative project organized by the Welsh Arts Council and Woodland Trust for which she designed a wild boar brick-clay seat for Gaer Fawr Wood (1990). Heeney was also involved in the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival in which she displayed a large brick wall form in the shape of a mythical creature, incorporating planting and seating areas as well as an enclosed garden (1992). She created a dragon structure as a hands-on project at the 1995 International Potters Festival in Aberystwyth.

Heeney is the author of Brickworks (A & C Black), published in 2003, and continues to complete numerous public art commissions. She is currently the Artist-In-Residence at the Powysland Museum in Wales.

Reprinted from The University of Wales Aberystwyth website.