Sheila Wyne experiments with visual art, public art projects, set design, neighborhood-initiated environmental design, grass roots community art support, and art interventions. She makes large mosaic totems that are displayed in public places and reflect the native Alaskan culture. She also makes smaller discrete objects that echo native Alaskan hand traditions for sealing and whaling and rope making. Although Wyne tries to use a wide range of materials in her work, including found objects, she strives to unite disparate objects and look for visual metaphors that symbolize and embody life’s journey.
Wyne grew up in Illinois and received a degree in literature from Wheaton College. She left the Midwest in the early 1980s, headed north, and landed a job at a geologist's camp in Cordova, Alaska. She then worked in the ceramics lab at the University of Alaska Anchorage where she discovered her penchant for the challenge of design. Wyne is also a core-four member of the Light Brigade, a collective of independent artists based in Anchorage who design and execute multimedia urban art interventions in the built and natural environment. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and Pratt Museums. She has designed over 20 public artworks since 1990.
Sheila Wyne's residency at McColl Center is supported by the Rasmuson Foundation Artist Residency Program and the Windgate Charitable Fund.