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 | About the Artist - Monica Maguire Artist Monica Maguire started out as a fashion student in Blackpool in the 1960s but abandoned fashion a few years later to pursue a career in sculpture. Even while she was studying fashion she knew sculpture was her calling and attended night classes where she made clay figurines from life models. Shortly after moving to Cornwall in 1970 she was offered a job at a pottery where she made pots to sell in the local tourist shop.
Changes in circumstances lead to Monica leaving Cornwall and moving to Turkey in the late 1980s where she continued to make clay models despite difficulties obtaining art materials. She would spend afternoons in the sweltering heat digging in the Turkish mountains for clay, which she processed herself before making into sculptures.
While in Turkey, the death of a famous Turkish wrestler lead to Monica being commissioned to make a figure of him to sell to the locals. The figurines amazed some local Turkish men who wanted models made of their head superimposed onto the muscular body of the wrestler. Word soon spread of Monica’s ability to make accurate three-dimensional works from small photographs and she quickly became established as the local portraitist.
Now back in England she runs a studio under the name of Monserali making portraits in clay and a variety of painted mediums. Most recently she started working in porcelain, the only clay medium to allow fine intricate detail of her delicate sculptures. When not working in the studio, Monica enjoys landscape painting focusing on seascapes in which she explores the relationship between sunlight and water.
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