Today, the septuagenarian artist looks like something of a rock star herself. As we speak, she is clad in a patchwork jacket created from colourful scraps hoarded over the decades. ‘It’s easier just to make stuff than buy it,’ she says with characteristic understatement, when asked about her dressmaking. ‘I looked through my fabric drawers and decided to make this jacket and a top. And then I thought, well, I’ll make a series of ceramics – but like patchwork.’
Another recent work features Donald Trump, his familiar form repeated in multiples alongside casts of weapons, women and soldiers. ‘I’m just making a subtle point about America,’ she comments drily. One such piece, On a Wing and a Prayer (2017), will be shown by Ting-Ying gallery at Collect art fair in London (27 February – 1 March). In the work, three Trump figures trudge truculently around plates decorated with twee transfers of game birds, in an ironic nod to cultural conservatism. ‘I was just horrified by Trump and the fact he seems to get away with doing and saying anything. He behaves so badly but he’s got the backing of American Christians,’ says McNicoll, who was raised as a Catholic, and credits childhood visits to Baroque churches as having helped form her love of lavish decoration.
It was a similar sense of outrage that fuelled her work from 2003 to 2011, at the time of the Iraq War. ‘I was so furious, because the whole invasion was based on lies. We had a massive demonstration but to no effect. Making was a way of trying to get rid of my crossness,’ she says. In pieces such as Expeditionary Coffee Set and Freedom and Democracy (both 2011), hapless looking soldiers seem bound both to one another and to kitsch consumer items. In the latter, ceramic soldiers encircle Coca-Cola bottles with Arabic labels, in a reference to American cultural imperialism. Would she describe these political pieces as satirical? ‘I’ve never seen myself as a satirist, because I’ve never thought of myself as being quite that clever. But it probably is satire.’ Humour is certainly an essential part of her work, even when she tackles difficult subjects: ‘If it doesn’t make me laugh, then there’s no point.’ Asked if the UK’s recent general election will inspire new work, she replies: ‘I can’t see myself making a Boris – but then I never know what will pop into my head.’