Watt was born in Greenock and studied at Glasgow School of Art. She first came to national attention while still at college when she won the 1987 Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This resulted in a commissioned painting of the Queen Mother. Watt’s early style focused on paintings of figures, often of female nudes. As her practice developed she began to explore the representation of textiles within her painted work.
An exhibition of her work entitled Fold was presented at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery in 1997 and was the first to exhibit this newer style. In 2000 she was the youngest artist to be offered a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, entitled Shift.
Watt has continued to exhibit nationally and internationally, and in 2017 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
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