After winning a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship, McGilchrist studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, in Munich (1960–61), and exhibited in both Munich and London. During this time, she experimented with a range of styles, including surrealist automatism, lyrical abstraction and figurative expressionism.

Photographic machine 1968 was made four years after McGilchrist returned to Australia and is characterised by her economic use of colour and pattern. Her hard-edged shapes and clean lines recall artworks included in the landmark exhibition ‘The Field’, which opened at National Gallery of Victoria’s new Melbourne premises in 1968. Despite these similarities, the intentionally small scale and medium of McGilchrist’s work stands in contrast to the heroic paintings and sculptures in ‘The Field’, quietly asserting a feminist stance.