Margaret Rose Preston was born on the 29th of April 1875 in Port Adelaide. She was not specially originated from an artistic family as her father was an engineer. As the eldest daughter, anyone could imagine all pressure was put on her. After her settle in Sydney, she enrolled herself into the National School of Design under Frederick McCubbin in 1893 where she started her art career. She took part in exhibiting with the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. She had done a lot of moving from place to place and that still continued on after her time in Adelaide. In July 1896, she enrolled herself, once again, into a National Gallery’s School of Painting under Bernard Hall alongside her own creation ‘’Still Life’’ earning herself a year’s free tuition. With all her experience and knowledge about art, she leased her own studio and began teaching full time in 1899. She helped disabled soldiers and painted during her spare times. Aboriginal bark paintings had always been her influence. She was then known highly influential during the 1920- 1940s for her modernist works as a painter, best artist for linocuts, wood engravings and introducing Aboriginal motifs into contemporary art. You wouldn’t say her range of artworks are contemporary, it’s very old fashioned and exclusive. We as the audience see her as the type of artists that is influenced by general events like historical views. This is how Preston uses her own tactics of visual language to tell the audience about her life. Margaret passed away in 1963.
Ricky Swallow was born in San Remo, Victoria in 1974. Swallow lives his career in Los Angeles, California now. At the age of 25, he won his first prize for art, the Contempora 5 Prize in Melbourne in the year 1999. Later in his career, he was selected to be the Australian representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale with his artwork ‘’ This Time Another Year’’. Swallow was able to exhibit many of his artworks in exhibition catalogs. He is very famous for his works described as models, miniatures, replicas, copies, dioramas, homage’s, mementos, monuments and simulacra. His range of artworks is all very contemporary as the society he lives in is the age of technology where everything is high tech and improved, because of his high tech works, kids, well people nowadays are so evolved by his works.