Margaret Nolan was born in Dublin in 1965 and is part of a distinguished artistic family—her uncle, Paddy McElroy, was Ireland’s foremost sculptor of the mid-20th century. Nolan studied with McElroy for many years in a private capacity before initiating her official studies in the 1980s at the College of Marketing & Design (Dublin). In 2000, she graduated with a Batchelor’s Degree in Fine Art Painting and Printing from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Her interest in public art grew after further studies she undertook, where in 2002, completing her thesis on the work of the Mexican muralists, most notably Diego Rivera.

Nolan has been living and working in Galway for 37 years. Upon arriving in Galway, she immediately started working with the newly founded Macnas Theatre Company, staying with them for a period of 3 years. With Macnas, she was engaged in a number of major projects including their first giant puppet dragon. On this project, she was a key member of the design team that developed the internal mechanism of the dragon, which needed to facilitate 20 people inside the giant puppet to provide its body movements and mobile capabilities. Another notable project was the design and creation of the oversized Macnas Heads. She modelled the heads in clay, made the plaster moulds and cast them. The famous Macnas Heads were created for the GAA final that year and were subsequently taken on a U2 world tour. Perhaps the biggest project Nolan worked on was the Gulliver Project for the Dublin Millennium celebrations in 1988: as well as working on props and inflatables, she modelled the original 2-foot maquette, which was subsequently scaled up to its full size of 80 feet high. 

Following her work with Macnas, Nolan set up her own ceramic studio in Dominick Street, Galway, where she produced her highly ceramics and sculptures. She received a number of notable commissions. Perks Amusements (Salthill), for example, commissioned her to create the monsters for their new ghost train. Again, for this project, she modelled all the monsters in clay, made the plaster moulds, and cast them in fiberglass. Another commission from the Quays Bar was to fabricate the concrete mouldings for outside the building, which can still be seen today. This led to further similar works created for McDonagh’s (Quay Street) and Couch Potatoes (Abbeygate Street).

An established figure in the Galway arts scene, Nolan has been commissioned by many businesses including Coca Cola Ireland, Guinness Ireland and Heineken. And she has also been commissioned by Jury’s Inn (Galway) and the Huntsman Inn (Galway) to create the many large paintings that adorn the walls, foyers and bedrooms of their hotels. 

Her more recent (non-public) work has shifted focus to the body within the context of increasing abstraction and pigment layering. Using mixed media and acrylic on board, and wire on wood for her sculptures, these new works explore themes of sexuality, the body within the private/public concourse, and how eroticism may be captured in subtle forms rather than explicit exposures. These works form numerous solo exhibitions and group shows in Galway, Clifton, and Dublin including Sin, Flesh, XCXCXCXCXC.