Meg Webster was born in San Francisco in 1944. She received her BFA from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1976, and then went on to obtain an MFA from Yale University in 1983. Though primarily a sculptor and installation artist, she also makes drawings and works on paper. Webster was greatly influenced by the Land art movement in the 1970s, and her works feature a similar focus on the Earth and confluence with nature through their incorporation of materials such as stone, soil, ash, beeswax, or spices. For several of her solo exhibitions at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York (held between the years 2000 and 2010), Webster created interactive installations in which the viewer experiences the piece by walking on or around the sculpted "ecosystem." These works invite viewers to contemplate their own relationship to the environment, both that which is artificially created inside the gallery and naturally occurring outside of it. Her installations are on a large scale, often over 182 cm high or 610 cm across, sometimes existing as enclosures in which the participant is encouraged to experience the structure from both without and within. The senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing serve as literal grounding for works that function primarily on a metaphorical level—bringing ritualistic and natural forms into the constructed space of the gallery. By using live plants that grow and decay within her installations, she aestheticizes the timelessness and fecundity of nature. Webster has exhibited at numerous art galleries, including the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1984), where she created a series of three enclosures constructed of wood, mud, hay, and earth; Milwaukee Art Museum (1990); Brooklyn Museum (1992); P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens, New York (1998); and most recently at Hudson River Park, New York, and the Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, Texas (both 2010). Webster has been featured in group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (1988); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989); and The Material Imagination, Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York (1995). Webster lives and works in New York.