Margaret in her native plant garden.
ABOUT
Margaret Gallagher is an artist, illustrator, and naturalist based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Her detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations highlight the intimate beauty of Southern California's native ecosystems. Long, quiet walks in LA's often-overlooked wild spaces - Griffith Park, the LA River, the San Gabriel and Santa Monica Mountains - provide inspiration for her drawings, which depict the hidden worlds of plants, animals, fungi, and invertebrates that subtly teem in the spaces around us. Scientifically accurate yet full of whimsy, the drawings are full of details that invite the viewer to linger, studying the creatures inhabiting each drawing. Margaret’s artwork invites fellow city-dwellers to recognize themselves as part of these interconnected webs of being.
Margaret was raised in rural Oregon, surrounded by gardens, fields, forests, and rivers. She studied art at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She also works as a field botanist, conducting plant surveys throughout California, and volunteers on the board of her local California Native Plant Society chapter.
Get in touch! Email Margaret at hello(at)margaret-gallagher.com
PRESS
Messenger Mountain News New Art Show at King Gillette Ranch Focuses on the Natural World Around Us
Occidental College 100 Years in Eagle Rock
Refinery 29 16 Reasons Why December is Going to Rule
Los Angeles County Store Safe and Warm: An Installation by Margaret Gallagher
Art for Art's Sake Margaret Gallagher: Inspired in Los Angeles
626 Arts Margaret Gallagher and Charlotte Hildebrand
Urban Velo Occidental and NELA Bicycle Art Show
CV
Education
2013 BA cum laude, Studio Art, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
Exhibitions
2020 Group Exhibition, Homing, California Botanic Garden, Claremont, CA
2020 Solo Exhibition, Our Friends the Nonhumans, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Visitors’ Center, Calabasas, CA
2019 Group Exhibition, Plants Are People Too, Artemisia Nursery, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Solo Exhibition, Plants & Insects, Artemisia Nursery, Los Angeles, CA
2016 Solo Exhibition, Colorado Wine Company, Los Angeles, CA
2016 Solo Exhibition, 99 Visions, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Group Exhibition, Do Not Disturb, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Solo Exhibition, Safe and Warm, Los Angeles County Store, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Solo Exhibition, Pocket Field Guides to the Beasts of Los Angeles, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Two Person Exhibition, Fauna, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Group Exhibition, Occidental and NELA Bicycle Art Show, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Group Exhibition, Senior Comprehensives, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
2011 Solo Exhibition, The Place to Be, Canby, OR
Illustration
2015 Book illustration, 99 Visions by Jessica Snow
2013 Occidental Street Lamp Banners
Curation
2016 Event Series, Garden Hours, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Group Exhibition, Frond, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Group Exhibition, Careful, Kind, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Lecture Series, Pehrtalks, Pehrspace, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Two Person Exhibition, Fauna, Perspace, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Group Exhibition, Occidental and NELA Bicycle Art Show, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA