Margaret Ashman was born in 1959 in Northampton, England. With a Physics degree from Oxford University and after several years working as a research Physicist she retrained in Fine Art at the University of Hertfordshire and did a Masters in Printmaking at the University of Brighton in 2005.

She is an elected Senior Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and exhibits regularly at the Bankside Gallery. She also exhibits regularly in many national exhibitions, art fairs and galleries including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Woolwich Print Fair, PrintFest and the Great Print Exhibition. 

She has exhibited in various International Print Biennials including Guanlan, Liège, Penang, Qijiang, Lingshi, and Douro. My work was selected for the Kraków-Katowice Triennial in 2009, the 5th Beijing International Art Biennale in 2012 and the 3rd Shanghai International Printmaking Exhibition in 2014. She was included in the prestigious Light Matter: Art at the Intersection of Photography and Printmaking exhibition in Indiana and Alberta Canada in 2019.

In 2015 She was commissioned by the Arts Council UK to make a series of photo etched portraits and a sign dance self portrait film for the exhibition Shifting Subjects: Contemporary Women Telling the Self through the Contemporary Arts, at the Abbey Walk Gallery, UK. A film about the exhibition is permanently installed in the Usher Gallery Lincoln.