Margaret West

Margaret West is an artist who sometimes makes jewellery; she writes — mostly poetry and essays; she is also a gardener who admires both roses and dandelions. She was born in Melbourne in 1936, and studied Sculpture and Printmaking at RMIT in the nineteen fifties, then Ceramics, Painting and Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT in the nineteen seventies. She has also studied philosophy and music — piano, oboe, viola. In 1979 she moved to Sydney to take up a position at Sydney College of the Arts where she taught until 1999. 

She has exhibited widely in Australia and overseas and is represented in major national and international art collections. Her poetry and essays are published in journals and anthologies and on the internet. She has published several artist’s books which develop a dialogue between text and image. 

Her work is informed by interests which range through literature, art and music, philosophy, science and technology, also gardening. Concern about political issues is often a springboard for the development of work. She employs a variety of materials and processes in her work, as dictated by the matter in hand. These, in turn, play their role in determining the focus and form of the work. 

Since 2000 she has lived in Blackheath, at the top of Blue Mountains in New South Wales. 

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