Michelle Monaghan was born in Scotland during the 1980’s. As a child growing up, she always had a strong affinity for artistic endeavours and particularly enjoyed pencil drawing animals, beaches, buildings and people which she would often give away to friends who would ask for them. She’d always planned to choose art as a subject at school, however, various male family members discouraged her from doing so, believing that she must opt for more ‘academic subjects’.

The principle teacher of art, the late Mr Dow, was so disappointed that she couldn’t select art as a course that he attempted to offer it as an additional class over lunchtimes, however, due to funding restrictions, the headteacher unfortunately, was not in a position to permit this and so she pursued biology, chemistry and physics followed quickly by admission to university where she studied Toxicology.

During the final years of the Toxicology course, it became apparent that science, although extremely interesting and valuable, did not really ignite her soul; nevertheless, she functioned / performed, passed all the exams, completed the course and graduated with an Honours Degree.

In the years that followed, she built a small business (nothing fancy, but enough to pay her way) and focused on looking after those closest to her and that was the way that things remained until early 2019. It was only after a series of traumatic events had taken their toll that she was encouraged to refocus on what she enjoyed and it was during this time, after a period of 18 years, that she once again picked up a pencil and decided to once again begin drawing.

It’s been an extremely steep learning curve, but one which has helped immeasurably to help heal previous traumas. For this, she is immensely grateful – she discovered that the value of art should never be downplayed.

Michelle’s work focuses on intimate scenes – subjects who are in love. She explores the beauty of balance and equilibrium, the exchange of power and themes of desire across a range of empowering, sensual and erotic settings. Her acrylic and oil paintings are a merge of the feminine and masculine; the dark and the light; the pleasure and the passion. Each piece challenges the viewer to dive beyond societal dogmas. For many, sex in art is deemed distasteful – unacceptable...and yet it is the very reason for the existence of us all.

Currently, Michelle resides in Scotland where she runs a small 9am – 5pm business and paints in any spare moments she has. She has so many ideas for future paintings she’d like to complete, but due to her current ‘day job’ commitments at this point in time, a fairly limited amount of time to paint...it’s just a case of squeezing time in wherever she can for now.

Portfolio: