Artist’s Biography
Ellamonique created her first masterpiece at age 3 when she drew a big fish with blue crayon on her parents' wall and entitled it "wale." Rather than being angry her mother supported and encouraged her artistic abilities, buying her one prismacolor colored pencil each pay period until she had the whole set. As a high school student at Mount Saint Mary Academy in Little Rock, AR, Ella would stay painting in the convent of the Sisters of Mercy after school while her mother worked. Ellamonique graduated with Honors from Mt St. Mary Academy in 1997 and received a full scholarship to study Painting at Bowling Green State University.
She traveled abroad, studying Renaissance Painting in Monflanquin, France with Master Painter, Patrick Betaudier. She began creating highly realistic oil paintings documenting and preserving the experiences of her family as cotton farmers in the Delta region of Arkansas. Her desire as an artist is to create work that is not only excellent in technique, but reaches people of all ethnic backgrounds on the level of their humanity.
Ellamonique received her Masters degree in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. Her work as an art therapist is focused to empower young people to give voice to their experiences through artmaking. As a licensed professional counselor she has assisted young people in community centers, homeless shelters, and residential treatment in using artistic expression in the therapeutic and healing process.
In 2005, she began an organization called WisdomTree that partners with other artists, business owners and educators to provide a multi-arts education and training program teaching life skills, social skills and spiritual development for at risk youth in the city of Chicago.
Now a resident of an artist live/work space located on Chicago’s West side, Ellamonique continues to actively engage youth in her community through apprenticeship programs to create public art work that speaks to their unique experiences while creating her own artwork that celebrates her faith, her family and her community.