Margaret Craig

Piled On the Ruins, Handmade Paper Composition

2023

STATEMENT My art is a contemplation of the ways we affect the plants and animals around us, and how we may be affected by them. I approach this both from a biology background as well as from artistic printmaking methodologies. My intent is to create work that will engender thought about the relationship between humans and their surroundings. Underlying imagery for me is about other worlds, and the portals between; worlds under the microscope or among the stars, drains, conduits and black holes. My recent interpretation involves plastic, which I repurpose and evolve into creatures which might one day populate the congregation of trash in the ocean gyres. This is not without precedent. The bacteria, ideonella sakainsis, eats plastic. This thinking about plastic has led me to think about what humans in the past have left behind. What has been the environmental result? These are messages about human history and the future and human expansion to the cosmos. BIOGRAPHY Margaret Craig received a degree in Biology Secondary Education, a BS in Art and an MA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She later received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Texas at San Antonio . She invented Tar Gel Pressless Etching and combines it with innovative and traditional printmaking techniques. Craig has demonstrated her process at SCG and MAPC conferences. She is often involved in trade portfolios and exhibits locally and nationally; most recently the Pandemic Print Portfolio Project and the Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency. Currently she is Chair of P Printmaking at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, TX. Her original Biology degree has been a major influence in the visual and ecological context of her work, and her shop promotes a less toxic approach to printmaking. margaretcraig.com