Heather McGill lived in the Detroit suburbs for over two decades, where she headed the Sculpture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. The city’s industrial heritage, specifically the automotive industry and Ford’s philosophy of mass production continues to influence her artistic practice. She learned to paint at a custom auto body shop while living in Michigan and continues to apply pigment using this method. A native to the west coast, her work is infused with the regional influence of southern California’s surf and custom car culture.

She was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 1999 and a Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2011. McGill has received grants for both permanent and temporary installations from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation, California Arts Council and San Francisco Arts Council. Her work is included in many private and public collections including the U.S Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, Sprint, Albright-Knox Gallery, Fidelity, the Progressive Art Collection, Wellington Management, Compuware Corporation, the Hood Art Museum, The Exploratorium Science Museum and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. She lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.