Pete Monaghan

Born in 1961, 2nd Generation Irish. Working from a studio in the Old College on Aberystwyth’s seafront. Pete has an MA in Fine Art from Aberystwyth University (2012).

As a trained illustrator he worked for many years producing technical and architectural drawings before feeling compelled to honour the artist within. Techniques learned in illustration are now evident in Pete’s paintings.

 “Neglected and dilapidated places fascinate Pete Monaghan. He has returned to them over and over again until they have become firmly established as the subject matter of his paintings. What is it that draws some of us to the tumbledown, to the make-do, to ramshackle farms and rusting echoes of abandoned barns? These are tatty, unaesthetic places. Many people turn their gaze away from them but, for those with eyes to see them, their forms are beautiful and their stories are compelling. Every detail reflects some labour, the solution to some problem: each boulder in the dry-stone walls was once lifted into place by hand, each patch made in corrugated-iron roofs is the ghost of someone’s ladder-reach. These places all were once the centre of someone’s life.”

(Dr. Peter Wakelin 2016)

PROJECTS

My innovative 2014 Arts Wales funded project entitled “demise of the rural welsh filling station” was seen as a timely and important comment on Welsh social history.