Born in Co.Kerry, Ireland, she studied in Cork, Belfast and Cardiff. Her interest in working with her hands came from helping her father-an electronic engineer in his workshops. Initially she made clay figures of clothed heads and torsos which were colourful and humorous, selling all pieces from her final exhibition at the end of her post-graduate diploma in applied arts (University of Ulster, Belfast 1991). While doing her MA in Cardiff (1991-1992), a chance remark by her tutor, Mike Hose, made her realise that her figures were semi-autobiographical. She re-evaluated her work and started to produce white porcelain nude figures with a more universal and pensive mood. The forms are built up of clay pinched out and applied in patches revealing a sense of the process of hand building yet also suggesting the soft vulnerability of skin and flesh. Clearly influenced by her Irish Roman Catholic heritage she is also inspired by early Italian Renaissance paintings such as Piero Della Francesca’s ‘Baptism of Christ’. All her figures have an air of melancholy and vulnerability. Frequent subjects include St Sebastian or winged figures contrasting the matt unglazed clay body with touches of gold suggesting a parallel with blood. Recently she has also made figures in red terracotta clay. She lives in Cardiff and has for many years worked in Fireworks Studios.
Saints are usually remembered for the manner of their death: one extreme, ultimate agony. Curneen’s saints, rather than appealing to others to follow them on the path to martyrdom, are consoling presences. They have suffered pain, but now they have no fear of it. The wounds on their bodies are hardly even disfiguring; they have survived their ordeal all-but-intact. They stand before us now, as vulnerable as ever, yet possessed of an inner strength. They may be hollow clay, but who could deny their more-than-material life?’ Timothy Wilcox 2003 (extract from ‘Succour’ catalogue).