Frances Hegarty was born in Teelin, Co. Donegal. Hegarty's work includes drawing, film and video, audio and live action, and public art. Her approach is simultaneously personal and issue-led, attesting to the struggle to have an aesthetically-engaged life without the loss of political consciousness. Recurrent motifs in the work include: the female figure, especially in landscape; the bodily gesture, in time; the “hand-made” mark, between drawing and writing; the physical features of body and land.