Sinéad is an award winning ceramic artist based in West Cork. Her work is thrown and hand built in clay, using colour and line to create movement and direction.

Earthy colours and soft curved lines are reminiscent of abstract landscapes and weather patterns. They can vary from tree lines in the distance, horizons at the seashore and stormy rain clouds.

Sinéad uses a technique called saggar firing to produce her work. The pieces are firstly low fired to remain semi porous. She does the second firing in her purposely built gas kiln, where the pieces are placed inside a lidded container called a saggar along with combustible materials such as sawdust, local seaweeds and grasses, metal wires and colouring oxides. These burn in the firing and produce fumes of vivid colour which penetrate the clay’s porous surface.

Remnants of the wires and organic matter can fuse to the surface creating surprise makings and textures. It’s an unpredictable technique and each firing produces very different results. No two pieces are the same.

Sinéad has trained with the Craft Council of Ireland and graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in 2011, winning the Lavit Gallery/ Cork Arts Society’s Student of the Year Award. As part of the award, Sinéad had her first solo show at the Lavit Gallery in 2012. She was awarded the Hungry Hill Gallery Award in June 2013 and the DBI/ Millcove Award in 2014, both as part of the Irish Contemporary Ceramic Awards.

Sinéad’s work was selected to be part of ART Shanghai in China in 2013. A vessel piece was selected to be part of the V International Ceramic Biennale in Mallorca, Spain in 2014 and the III. International Ceramics Triennial UNICUM, Slovenia in 2015. Her work was shown along with 6 other Irish ceramic artists, as part of Heritage and Diversity, East meets West in South Korea in 2016.

Sinéad is represented by the Lavit Gallery, the Millcove Galleries and Sarah Walker Gallery in Co. Cork, the Sliding Rock Contemporary Ceramic Gallery in Galway and the 1608 Gallery in Northern Ireland. Her work has been bought by the Crawford College and CIT College, the Irish Office of Public Works and by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly for their private collections.