Borne in Germany during World War II, Margrit Wendt lived, studied and worked in many different countries, e.g. UK, Switzerland, Venezuela, Brazil and again Switzerland where she studied and graduated as Master in Business Administration (MBA) at one of the most renowned European Business Schools, being the only female amongst 43 male students from 23 different countries. After 14 years of managerial work with a major pharmaceutical company, she and her husband felt it was time for a change in career and in 1993 moved to Western Australia.

Consequently, Margrit not only had to learn different languages but also was exposed to and confronted with very distinct cultures. That is when she discovered a powerful means to capture and communicate these divergences - photography - which became her passion.

Inspired by the extreme beauty of the Australian Continent, Margrit decided to seriously take up photography by first joining the Wanneroo Photographic Society which was a real eye-opener for fine art photography. Then in 1996, Margrit began studying photography at TAFE and 3 years later enrolled as a postgraduate student at ECU. Early 1997, she became a member of the Australian Photographic Society and in September of the same year, she held her first photographic group exhibition at the Moore Building in Fremantle followed in 2003 by another group exhibition at the Photographic Gallery of WA.

Simultaneously, Margrit began to enter State and National Competitions as well as International Exhibitions in Australia, Austria, France and Germany winning most years gold, silver and/or bronze medals. In 2002 and 2004 she was awarded the Robertson Trophy for the best print of the Western Australian Photographic Federations (WAPF) Members Exhibition. Also in 2004, Margrit was awarded the ‘Licentiateship’ (LAPS) and in 2005 the ‘Associateship’ (AAPS) of the Australian Photographic Society. Early September 2006, she furthermore was granted the AFIAP (Associée de la Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique) honours, thus being the first and only woman in Western Australia having ever received such honours.

The advent of digital imaging and the ‘dry darkroom’ lent wings to her imagination and Margrit began to create images rather than just represent a moment in time of any photographed subject. TIME is the theme that fascinates her most – its tyranny, its mercilessness, its healing power as well as its beauty. And this fascination is expressed in most of her works.

While working on a photo, the monitor becomes her canvas on which the image slowly emerges, taking sometimes months to be completed. A collection of these photos were shown in August/September 2005 at Challen & Rafferty Gallery’s ‘Women of the West’ Exhibition in Perth that was opened by the Australian Women of the Year 2005, Dr. Fiona Wood. In February 2006 Margrit had her first solo exhibition 'Time is a bankless River' at the Kingfisher Gallery in West Perth. Her next solo exhibition was at the Lime Gallery in East Fremantle from November 10th till December 7th, 2006.

For more information on Margrit’s work, please visit her Web page under www.margritwendt-photography.com.