Behind the Artist...

Creativity has always been a part of Monica's life and growing up with an artistic mother inspired her to channel her flair for art and design into a career. As a result, a big part of her life has been devoted to art.

Monica grew up in the 'outback' of Western Australia, Tom Price located in the Pilbara located some 1700km North of Perth and 300km inland from the coast. It is a semi-arid landscape with high temperatures throughout the year, nearing to 47 degrees celsius in Summer.

The wet season is in Summer over the Christmas festive season. With high temperatures, thick heavy dark clouds and thunder roll over and shed their weight of rain for twenty mintues before moving on.

The scent of spinifex grass and the dry red dirt fill the air with its purfume and ones lung with moist air, a rarity. This arid landscape is what fueled alot of Monicas work in the past before she moved to the cooler, wetter climate of Mandurah, Western Australia in 2005.

After completing all her childhood schooling in Tom Price Monica went on to study Fine Art at Claremont School of Art in Perth W.A. It wasn't long after she completed her Diploma that she found herself drawn back to the desert scape and community lifestyle.

She commenced teaching Art and Design for Pilbara College Ashburton Campus at the age of 22. She traveled throughout the Pilbara and up to 400km one way to access remote communities such as Onslow.

Following in the footsteps of her Mother who was an art faciliator for the very same college years before, Monica found her challenge in bringing art to remote people and in particular Indigenous people.

Monica went on to faciliate for a total of nine years helping establish numerous major art projects and community based ventures throughout the Pilbara. Monica received an award as 1 of 200 high achiveing West Australian in 2004.

As a practising artist Monica best describes herself as an Intuitive Energy Artist, drawing on her subconscious and connection to life and the Universe to fuel her work. She claims she can't work creativily any other way. She has found that the process of preparation and preliminary drawings/ideas smothers her creative energy and takes her away from her natural intuitive state.

After having two years off from faciliating art after the birth of her first child, Monica is offering people the opportunity to purchase her work on line and attend private workshops and classes in Mandurah, Western Australia.

Photos from Monica's Past