Monique Burkhead is of Polynesian, Maori and Australian heritage. She was born in the Cook Islands in 1988 and grew up in Papua New Guinea until the age of 10 before moving to Cairns where she still lives and works. 

She is an emerging artist and experiments with a range of mediums in her art. Her current focus is on producing ceramic vessels that combine wheel thrown and hand-built forms which are then embellished with hand formed sculptural elements inspired by the rainforests and reefs of Far North Queensland. Although functional in nature many of her recent vessels appear more like ceramic sculptures due to the rich abundance of forms on their surface.

She is passionate about conserving the environment and through her art hopes to raise an awareness of the fragile nature of our natural environment and the impacts of climate change.

In 2023 Burkhead was awarded a Cairns Art Gallery Artist Fellowship for her Ocotpus’s Garden series of works. The Fellowship proudly supported by the Cairns RSL Club will enable Burkhead to produce a new body of work for a solo exhibition at the Gallery.