Jill Crowley was born in Ireland and studied at Bristol Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art where Hans Coper was then teaching. After graduating she won a travelling scholarship to Greece and the USA and later established a studio in London. Crowley belongs to a generation of Royal College students, including Alison Britton and Elizabeth Fritsch, who were encouraged to move away from the prevailing British orthodoxy in oriental vessels with an evident functional form. Her work is immediate and appealing with an underlying sense of warmth and humour. Her subject matter ranges from a series of human and animal heads (including portraits of her own Burmese cat, Ollie) to hands and arms, modelled initially after those of her own baby. Her interest with hands now focuses on touch, skin texture and the tracery of fingerprints, manicured and painted nails and undulations of flesh.