Margo Sawyer studied at the Brighton Polytechnic Faculty of Art and Design and received a B.A. Honors Degree from Chelsea School of Art in London. Her interest in contemporary American art led her to the United States, where she entered the sculpture program at Yale University, receiving an M.F.A. in 1982. Throughout her career she has devoted much time to the observations of major historic and contemporary sites of sacred architecture. She is particularly interested in how the relationships between space and transcendence function and where architecture and ritual converge in creating installations that instill contemplation.

Sawyer has created many public art projects for outdoor spaces in locations such as San Antonio International Airport, Discovery Green in downtown Houston, and the Whole Foods Headquarters in Austin. Sawyer was recently appointed by the Texas Legislature as the 2015 Texas State Three Dimensional Artist. A few of her numerous grants and fellowships include the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, a Japan Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to Japan. Some of her exhibitions have been held at the Blaffer Art Gallery at the University of Houston, The Austin Museum of Art, Sagacho Exhibit Space in Tokyo, Japan, and ArtPace, a Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, Texas. She holds the position of Full Professor of Sculpture and Installation Art at the University of Texas at Austin where she has been a faculty member for nearly twenty years.