Margaret West's work was introduced in the Netherlands in 1998at Gallery Ra's 'New jewellery by 20 Australian Artist' show. In Australia Margaret West has built up a reputation over the years as an artist who makes jewellery, as a writer and as head of the jewellery department at Sydney University. She writes regularly about the dilemmas, the pleasures and the challenges the maker of objects meets in today's society. She also writes poetry.

Her jewellery is poetic too, 'sober and radiant'! The choice of materials and the process with which she makes her objects is clear: she drills holes in pebbles and connects them with steel wire; she paints pieces of granite, basalt or slate in subtle or outspoken colours such as blue or orange. Her most recent work are 'notes' created in gleaming marble: clouds in the sky, flowers in the garden. Things of a temporary nature, images that invite us to contemplate, to dream, to remember and to desire…

Paul Derrez

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