[2] Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Bea Maddock studied art education at the University of Tasmania,[3] Hobart and taught secondary school in her home city before travelling abroad to study at the Slade School of Art, London.

Maddock visited Paris, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, where she closely studied the work of the German Expressionists, who were a formative influence.

Maddock lived and worked at Mount Macedon, Victoria until the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 forced her to flee.

Maddock's most recent major work, 'Terra Spiritus... With a Darker Shade of Pale', is a 51 part inscribed etching of the entire coastline of Tasmania, each feature labelled with both the English and the Aboriginal Tasmanian topographic names.

Staff of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania are currently preparing a catalogue raisonné.