Born in Christchurch 1962, Marian Maguire graduated from the University of Canterbury in 1984. During 1986 she studied at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography, Albuquerque and in 1991 was Artist in Residence at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art. She received an Award for Excellence from the Canterbury Community Trust in 1998.

Marian's images mix the imagined with the real and display a personal response to history. Often figurative, her work has also pictured architectural space, gates, bridges and mythological landscapes. Since 1997 her prints and paintings have been largely related to Greek vase painting and work mythical narratives into a New Zealand environment.

In the series entitled 'Forest' and 'Flow Diagrams', she has abstracted sections of patterning from the vase painting to produce formal, optic works.

In the recent exhibition "The Odyssey of Captain Cook' the Endeavour is the vehicle by which ancient Greeks collide with tangata whenua.

Maguire has participated regularly in solo and group exhibit.