Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks was born in 1934 in Nebraska, USA and currently lives in Paris,
France. She studied at Yale University and graduated in 1957 with a bachelor
of fine arts and in 1959 with master of fine arts in painting. She worked on the
tutelage of Josef Albers, an American-German artist known for his paintings with
an emphasis on squares. During her academic years she visited Chile where
she researched Peruvian and Bolivian archaeological sites and pre-Columbian
textile work, which greatly influenced her.
Hicks believes that popularity in art movements should be finite and gradually
fade away in prevalence, so that they may give more meaning to artwork, the
vulnerability and emotion of it, rather than trying to preserve art for centuries.
Hicks wanted to explore how textiles, fibres and filaments, conveyed language
visually with colour, movement, and pattern.
Hicks has created monumental exhibits for various organisations including the
Ford Foundation Headquarters and the Federal Courthouse in New York City.
Some of her work has been described as “fibre-wrapped tubes like giant pool-
noodles”; in the Palace of Versailles where she worked she dressed the statue
of Proserpine in blue, purple and orange colours.
Hicks has stated that she feels that textiles had become “ relegated to a
secondary role in our society, to a material that was considered either
functional or decorative.” Thus, her goal throughout much of her career has
been to develop textiles to weave astonishing works of art.
Overall Hicks’ work consists expressing emotion and ideas through colour
and form, like many artists before her. However, she uses materials such as
wool to transcend their once societal normalisations and expand upon their
meanings of inclusiveness and integration, contrasting the estranged
history of the medium.