Margaret Ross Tolbert has always investigated the lenses and points of view, especially linguistic
and social, that create different realities.

She earned her BFA and MFA in painting at the University of Florida, and soon after had her first
underwater explorations in the springs heartland of the Floridan aquifer. She discovered that in
certain ideal circumstances, the lens of water is not only a metaphorical construct but an actual
physical space we can enter. When we enter this space, we are transformed. Her work has since
been about communicating the experience of immersion through painting and installation,
writing and film.

Since the 1980s, Tolbert’s springs paintings have featured in exhibits and collections in the US,
Europe and Turkey. In 2010 the book AQUIFERious, with art and science combining as a
guidebook to springs and the Floridan aquifer, and the urgent need for preservation, was
released. It received a gold and silver medal in the Florida Book Awards, and the accompanying
AQUIFERious exhibit and film was shown in New Orleans, the University of Virginia and in
numerous museums and art centers in Florida through 2019. Tolbert was a producer of Lost
Springs (2017), a plea for restoration of a historic river and springs with her art as a starting
point, with a premiere exhibition at the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art. Public art
installations include the Orlando Springs installation (2011) at Orlando International Airport, and
Connected Worlds of forest and springs at the Austin Cary Memorial Forest (2015) in
Gainesville, FL. Tolbert has had several exhibits in the Art and Embassies program in Turkey,
and her commissioned 18 ft diptych Ulupinar/Great Spring was recently installed in the new
United States embassy in Ankara, Turkey. She is based in Gainesville, FL.

Margaret Ross Tolbert

Twin Springs, 2019