Marian Crawford is a visual artist whose art works explore the relationships between the book, fine art printmaking processes, and the printed image in contemporary culture. She has presented her creative works and writings publicly for over twenty years.

Her artworks were recently presented in the 2020 Art Book Fair, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; 2020 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists Book Prize, Artspace Mackay, QLD; 2020 STPI Printmakers Assembly online exhibition, STPI, Singapore; priNT 2020, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin, NT; the 2019 Experimental Print Prize, Castlemaine Art Museum, Vic; 2019 Recent Acquisitions, Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood, Vic; Geelong Acquisitive Print Award, Geelong Gallery, Vic; Burnie Print Prize 2019, Burnie Regional Gallery, Tasmania; Singapore Art Book Fair, Gillman Barracks, Singapore; and Paper Contemporary 2019, Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, Sydney, NSW in 2019. See http:/www.mariancrawford.com for further information.

She was awarded the Queenscliff Gallery & Workshop Residency Award as part of the 2019 Geelong Gallery Print Award; and the 2015/16 Siganto Fellowship at State Library of Queensland. Her artist books were reviewed by Sarah Bodman in The Heart of the Matter Printmaking Today (UK) Vol 24 No 4 Winter, 2015.

Other publications include the article Picturing the Island was published in the Impact Printmaking Journal, Issue One, Spring 2020 http://www.impactprintmaking.com/journals/spring-2020/, Invented people who never existed, The Blue Notebook, Impact Press, Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK, Vol 13, No 1, 2018; and A Lively Phantom, Journal of Artist Books JAB42, Centre for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago, USA, 2018, Vol 42. 

From 2015 to 2018 her essays investigating the artist book were published in Verso Magazine: This World of Shadows, Vol 3 2018; Micro to Macro: the cosmos in a coffee, Vol 2, 2018; Unusually hidden from sight, 2017; Heavy & light, full & empty, Sabine Golde’s fragments of Art & Space, 2016; To renew the old, Verso 4 2016; and How could a cockatoo howl?, 2015. See https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/130089/alan-loney/verso-2-a-magazine-for-the-book-as-a-work-of-art for further details.

In 2015 Crawford established a collaborative research network The News Network Project drawing together artists and educators from RMIT University, Australian National University, Auckland Institute of Technology, and Dunedin School of Art. This network of artists combines research strengths to creatively recontextualise current events in public outcomes that contribute to contemporary visual art.

Her artworks are held in the collections of The British Library, London, UK; Deakin University Art Collection, Melb, Vic; Monash University Library, Caulfield, Vic; National Gallery of Victoria, Melb, Vic; National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT; State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD; State Library of Victoria, Melb, Vic; and private collections.