Mikey Welsh is a self-taught artist based in Burlington, VT. His style is somewhat akin to Art Brut and the Cobra movement of the 1940's. Mikey's mother, who is a classically-trained painter, immersed him in art from a young age. Starting with watercolors and collage, Mikey continued to work on art until the age of 19, at which point he started his music career. At the age of 30, after suffering a nervous breakdown, he dedicated himself to painting full-time. Since 2001, Mikey has had several successful solo exhibitions, selling his work to collectors and working private commissions.

Welsh attacks his canvases with pure spontaneity and aggression, almost never using a brush and preferring to work only with his hands and fingers. This technique gives him the opportunity to get as close and "inside" to his paintings as he needs to be. For him, this is a necessity. Welsh also works in sculpture, working with found objects. Constructing creatures out of broken and dismantled chairs and furniture, to vacuum hoses, tupperware, wire, and rope. All painted with his usual explosion of color.

The Boston Globe has called Welsh's artwork "manic, edgy, and masculine...Welsh handles his brush confidently, and his paintings read as if he sliced open a metaphorical vein and poured blood and soul onto the canvas."

Boston Magazine has said, "Many are astonishing. Not only for their subject matter - a crucified bull with a giant phallus, a life-size pope melting in the fires of hell - but also for their beauty and power. Influenced by abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock and early pop artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Welsh turns oils, acrylics, house paint, brush-stroked words, and pages torn from newspapers or porn mags into images that seduce the eye and ignite the mind."

Most recently, Burlington's Seven Days newspaper has called Welsh a "prodigious and prolific painter."

For Mikey's first solo show, he was especially asked by the Paradise Club in Boston to hang over 40 of his paintings for their 25th anniversary celebration. The day of the Paradise opening, one of Mikey's pieces from the show, titled Heroin, was prominently featured in a Rolling Stone article about musicians who also paint. He was in the company of Patti Smith and Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood.
     Exhibitions:
2002solo exhibitionParadise Rock ClubBoston, MA
2003group exhibitionZeitgeist GalleryCambridge, MA
2004solo exhibitionThe Gallery at OpalineBurlington, VT
2004solo exhibitionAvanti GalleryBoston, MA
2004solo exhibition47 Sanctuary GalleryBurlington, VT
2005collaborative exhibition47 Sanctuary GalleryBurlington, VT
2005solo exhibitionAmy E. Tarrant GalleryBurlington, VT
2006solo exhibitionThe Gallery at Screen ArtsSt Augustine, FL
2006group exhibition"Shining Dunces" - various venuesAsheville, NC
2006group exhibitionDarkside SnowboardsStowe, VT
2007solo exhibition47 Sanctuary GalleryBurlington, VT
2007group exhibitionBRIK GalleryCatskill, NY
2007solo exhibitionParadise Rock ClubBoston, MA