| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Margaret May is part of post-1970’s generation of artists who changed the face of printmaking in Alberta. Along with such artists as William Laing, Lyndal Osborne, Walter Jule, John Will, J.K. Esler and others, she brought contemporary subject matter to the medium and employed new techniques including collography and photomechanical processes.
After graduating from the University of Alberta with a BFA (1973) and earning a Master’s in Visual Arts (1975), Margaret May began teaching printmaking at the Alberta College of Art (now the Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary, AB). In her own art, she became best known for simply stated images containing abstracted or biomorphic shapes. Featuring iconic forms such as the cocoon and the burning flame, they acted as metaphors for psychological growth and spiritual awareness, self-doubt and despair, and an exploration of the self or what she once described as in-direct self-portraiture. These sensitive themes challenged late modernist ideas about personal content being off-limits to artists.
Lithographs, mixed media on plywood (onto which printed components are layered into the painting), and small beautifully painted sculptural works (made of MDF board) are but a few examples of the mediums in which she works.
May has appeared in group shows in Japan, Poland, Yugoslavia, England, Australia and Sweden as well as across Canada. The artist was honoured with a 1996 retrospective at the Nickle Arts Museum (now Nickle Galleries, U of C,) and a 1990 travelling exhibition with stops in Toronto, Lethbridge, Edmonton & Calgary. In Made in Calgary: 1980s and 1990s (Glenbow Museum, Calgary) her innovative art was showcased. |