A World Worth Looking Closely At
Winding lines travel across green, ochre, and pale gray forms in Margot McMahon’s Brain Coral. The eye follows their intricate paths, discovering a living architecture that feels both intimate and immense. In Spiral Coral, softer tones invite an even quieter encounter, as rounded forms gather into a delicate field of recurring patterns.
For Margot, close attention carries a larger purpose. A sculptor, painter, and author, she has spent decades asking how our decisions can support life on Earth and social justice. Her art gives that question warmth and presence, bringing human, plant, and animal life into a shared frame.
Wonder Opens the Conversation
Her coral paintings grow from a lifelong fascination with the natural world. Working in technique mixte with oil on canvas and panel, Margot makes complexity visible through rhythm, texture, and carefully observed forms.
In Greatest Bounce Back on Earth, a broad ray sweeps through a scene alive with fish and coral. Above the water, rocky land opens beneath a band of sky. The composition brings distinct worlds together, encouraging us to consider the connections running through them. Beauty becomes a place to begin paying attention.
That same curiosity travels through her writing, including If Trees Could Talk and The Fifth Season: The Chicago Tree Project. Across mediums, Margot returns to the possibility that art can change how we see the world we inhabit.
Where Art and Ecology Meet
On the western shore of Lake Michigan, midway between Chicago and Milwaukee, Margot created Anam Cara Eco-Art Space. Named for the Celtic idea of a soul friend, the one-acre setting includes a solar-powered cottage, exhibition space, and an outdoor sculpture garden celebrating the interconnection of life.
A hand-built octagonal lighthouse, made from three pine trees felled on the property, joins a second structure in an environmental learning space. Here, everyday Midwest behavior enters a conversation with the health of our oceans and climate.
Margot holds an MFA from Yale University and has taught at Yale, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and DePaul University. Her work is held in collections including the Smithsonian Institution and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Through this breadth of practice, a single commitment remains clear: to make the living world feel close enough that we recognize our place within it.
Contact the artist: margotmcmahon.com
More artists: Josef Weidner: Where the Familiar Becomes Fantastic · Mary E Morgan: The Landscapes We Carry Within · Submit your work to ArtTour International
