Born in Christchurch in 1962, Marian Maguire attended Ilam, the
University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, graduating with a
degree in Printmaking in 1984. Following her formal training,
Maguire went on to complete the Professional Printer Trainer
Programme at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque,
U.S.A in 1986. Maguire returned to Christchurch in 1987 to open
Limeworks Lithography Studio and was later accepted as the 1991
artist-in-residence at the Otago Polytechnic, an award funded by
QEII Arts Council. In 1998 she received an Arts Excellence Award
from the Canterbury Community Trust. She has participated regularly
in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand, notably at
the McDougall Art Annex with her show "Library Travelling".
Maguire's subjects range across an imaginary world populated
with motifs and emblems drawn from various influences.
Maguire's early work dealt primarily with the human body and
its relationship to mythological models and psychological
states, before gradually shifting focus to architectural ideas
symbolised in gates, bridges, and the floor plans of
cathedrals; a style that recalled Classical Greek and Renaissance
notions of the ideal. More recent work has incorporated imagery
from early Greek vases into a modernist painting form with specific
interest in the friction between the highly stylised elegance of
vase design and the brutality of the subject matter.
Maguire currently operates PaperGraphica, a professional
printmaking studio in Christchurch renowned for the quality of its
work and the calibre of artists and printmakers Maguire attracts.
Her work is held in many public and private collections across the
country, including the National Library and the Dunedin Public Art
Gallery's permanent collection.