Sea Islands

Sea Islands

Oct 4, 2019–Jan 5, 2020

• Middle Gallery | October 4, 2019 – January 5, 2020
• Featuring artist Margaret Craig

Artist Statement

“My artwork is a contemplation on 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 most 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. With this piece, conceived during the Contemporary at Blue Star Berlin Residency Program, I walked the city street collecting materials, stuff that would fall into rivers and then flow to oceans. To this I added and manipulated my own printed materials to create the evolving ‘islands’. The installation Sea Islands includes both my artist trash and household trash. The raw materials coalesce into “eddies” with the “tide”. The viewer climbs a peer on the shore to view what is collecting there. As an artist, I utilize and manipulate plastic in communicating my message. My intent is to create work that will engender thought about the relationship between humans and their surroundings.”–Margaret Craig

Artist Bio

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 received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Texas at San Antonio. An innovator in printmaking techniques, she invented Tar Gel Pressless Etching and has demonstrated that and other techniques at national conferences. She is often involved in trade portfolios and exhibits locally, nationally and internationally. She has completed residencies in Italy, United Kingdom, China, France and the Contemporary at Blue Star Berlin Residency program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Currently she is Professor and Chair of 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 print shop promotes a less harmful approach to printmaking with her students. She has one husband, one bird, and three cats.