Carol NcNicoll was a member of a group of female artists who transformed the British ceramics scene in the 1970s. Prior to this she worked as a machinist for the fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and designed and made stage costumes for Roxy Music. Her animated ceramic works are conceived to exist in the internal domestic sphere, while also taking on external elements of the world, through her composite sculptures using inventive modelling and moulding techniques, transfers and found objects. She studied Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic before completing an MA at the Royal College of Art.
McNicoll has designed collections for Next Interiors and Axis Diffusion amongst others, lectured at various institutions and has exhibited widely, both in the UK and internationally. In 2001 she was short-listed for the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics and a major Crafts Council retrospective of her work toured the UK from 2003 – 2005.