Bio

Patricia McCoy was born in Limerick City and got all her formative education there. She attended Limerick College of Art and Design where she completed a visual awareness course before entering a degree course in Ceramic Design. This course was her first introduction to much of what she needed in order to express herself in the world of ceramics.  

After education Patricia needed to get work experience in the different skills and after a brief spell of working in a pottery in Kilkenny she travelled to London where she worked in North Street Pottery for 2 years. After London Patricia worked in Turin in Italy and Harlem in the Netherlands working in different locations and using the skills she would need in her own studio workshop.

Returning to Ireland Patricia secured a place in a training course with the Crafts Council of Ireland in Kilkenny. This year long course gave her the freedom to continue to experiment and develop her glazes and ideas 

After the year with the crafts council, Patricia returned to West Cork where she started up her own studio workshop and 30 years later now she has participated in numerous exhibitions both nationally and locally. Her work has continued to change and develop with the passage of time along with her changing taste and influences and the markets tastes too!!. She is inspired by the beautiful countryside which surrounds where she lives, all its colour, texture and light and often by the function which the particular piece may need to preform or an exhibition title may require.

 Artist statement

Patricia McCoy is the maker of functional and figurative ceramics. Her pieces are made from high firing sculptural stoneware clays which she mixes to the need of their function. She has developed her own collection of glazes which she alone uses and so gives her work a uniqueness.