Margaret Dodd (b.1941) was born in Berri, South Australia and studied at Adelaide Teachers College and the South Australian School of Art. In 1965, she moved with her husband and children to California, where she enrolled at the University of California, Davis. Studying ceramics with Robert Arneson, Dodd became part of the irreverent artistic community surrounding UC Davis and the emerging California Funk movement. She earned her B.A. in 1967. After returning to Adelaide, Dodd brought the subversive humor and unconventional approach to ceramics she encountered at Davis into an emerging feminist practice. Her best-known series, This Woman is Not a Car, transforms the Holden—an Australian-made automobile produced by an American-owned company—into a vehicle for exploring gender, sexuality, consumer culture and Australian national identity. Dodd created ceramic Holdens that appear anthropomorphic, disrupting associations between cars, masculinity and power while drawing parallels between automobiles and the objectification of women’s bodies. She expanded these ideas into photography, installation and her influential 1982 film This Woman is Not a Car. Dodd’s work is held by the National Gallery of Australia and major state collections throughout Australia.