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Living on the fringe of ordinary suburban life can bring a wry perspective. It was such a view that Artist Caroline Magerl experienced in being raised aboard a yacht.



Born in 1964, Magerl arrived in Australia from Germany in 1966 with her mother and father. She lived at the edge of Sydney's suburbia until she was seven when her parents set sail on the 45 foot boat that her father had built in the backyard. So started a peripitatic, rootless existence that saw Magerl go to ten different schools by the time she was fifteen.



Afterwards, she made a living during her 20s as a cartoonist for a yachting magazine, drawing on her sense of humour and her years experience sailing up and down the east coast of Australia and to New Zealand.



Magerl continued work as a cartoonist and illustrator but her heart’s wish was to create children’s books. This desire received a boost when she completed the illustrations for her first picture book 'Grandma's shoes by Libby Hathorn' and won the Children's Book Council of Australia, 2001 Crichton Award for best new talent in the field of Children's Book Illustration.

In 2006 Magerl was moved to Canberra to learn printmaking at the Megalo print studio, studying under Deborah Perrow , master printmaker formally employed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Magerl excelled in this medium and now has a press of her own.

Now living in Buderim, Queensland, with her husband and teenage daughter. Children’s books remain a great love and in 2012 she was awarded a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to do a picture book for children where she creates both words and pictures.

Living on the fringe of ordinary suburban life can bring a wry perspective. It was such a view that Artist Caroline Magerl experienced in being raised aboard a yacht. Born in 1964, Magerl arrived in Australia from Germany in 1966 with her mother and father. She lived at the edge of Sydney's suburbia until she was seven when her parents set sail on the 45 foot boat that her father had bui... More