Maria is an artist living near the city of Cork in Ireland.

She was born and raised near the border with Northern Ireland in the town of Clones but moved south to live in Cork when she married Tony Hegarty in 1981. 

Maria went to art college in Dublin, has had a lifelong interest in outdoor pursuits, particularly golf, and has had a long career as an art teacher, but throughout all of her life, Maria saw herself primarily as an artist. To this end she has had several art exhibitions in Cork, Kerry, and Galway, has illustrated two books, has had her work used on book covers, trained as an art therapist, and regularly takes commissions for paintings and drawings on a variety of themes.

The human figure usually takes centre stage in her work. Maria started as a portrait artist. Her work at the Cork Jazz Festival in the late 1980’s and into the early 1990’s was an integral part of the event in the city.  

Examples of these exhibitions can be seen here in the Back Catalogue.

Her training as an Art Therapist changed her approach to her painting and allowed her to access an emotional vein in her explorations without having a focus from the outset on a finished product. She found this liberating, and she has explored many personal themes to a very healing conclusion with this approach. See her recently explored themes.

Two of her three children set up a mythology storytelling company called Candlelit Tales and Maria is currently working on paintings inspired by their stories. She also designed the logo they use! 

Maria takes commissions for her Hand Portraits and personalized Wedding invitation designs.  

Due to the restrictions caused by the Pandemic in 2020 the planned touring exhibition of images to accompany the Candlelit Tales Storytelling group was cancelled. It is hoped that a similar exhibition will be arranged in the near future.

Maria paints generally with acrylic paint on either Watercolour paper or on rolls of canvas that she can cut to accommodate the size she feels like working on when starting a new piece. You can see more of her work on her Etsy and Instagram pages.