Margo Grimes

Murrawarri

Margo Grimes has been making art for over thirty years. She began making art while she was at University in Sydney, and it was a random connection that got her started all those years ago.

“I didn’t realise at the time, but he was a cousin of mine. That connection with him made me feel like it was important for me to make art”.

Margo’s art is a very deliberate style of drawing. There is nothing like it in the region and it is the very uniqueness of the work which makes it so special.

“I started off doing paintings, dot art and stuff, but that has turned into what I do now, which is more drawing based”.

The images that Margo creates are complex forms of line, pattern and shape. She can produce hundreds of examples of what she has made, mostly with pen and paper, and mostly done at her kitchen table. She says that she doesn’t plan what she makes, but lets it evolve as she works.

“I don’t have a plan for what I do, I’ve never had a plan, I just sit down with the paper and my thoughts come out on paper – it actually draws itself, I’m just the holder of the pen”.

Being the holder of the pen brings the responsibility of understanding the process. By making her work, Margo creates a space for her thoughts to run free. She says that this connects her with her own understanding of who she is, and when she works, her thoughts are free to explore that space.

“It makes me think about where I come from, who I am, it helps me to remember. I just get lost in it and my thoughts take me away”.

Margo hopes that the future, for her, has much more art in it. For the way that she works, this means that all she needs is the time and space; once she has that, the art will make itself.

“I would just like to spend more time making art – I can’t force myself to do it, I have to want to do it, then it just draws itself”.