The "Christ in Melbourne" monoprints grew out of studies in 1995 at the Victorian College of the Arts, and a desire to locate the Christ story in the Melbourne Mr. Donnelly had grown to love just as the Australian painter Arthur Boyd had done fifty years earlier, or Stanley Spencer had done with his beloved Cookham in England. Mr. Donnelly was asking questions like: Who would Jesus be in today's society? Who would Christ's friends be now? With whom would He associate? How would He be treated?

The nature of monoprinting on a copper plate where one is working with etching ink, brushes, rags and cotton buds in a spontaneous and immediate way demanded quick responses. Christ may well be Koori (an Australian Aborigine) or a larrikin Irish Catholic. He would be born to a single mother in a public lavatory, and baptized in the Yarra River by a crazy Baptist. He would frequent St. Kilda, and talk theology over Big Macs. He would be tempted on the Rialto Towers, and appear on the television news.

Michael Donnelly lives and paints in Ashwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and three children, working in a studio in the backyard. He moved to Melbourne from Sydney to teach art and design in 1985, and has held nine solo shows. In 1996, he completed post-graduate studies in painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, and is currently teaching art to vision-impaired children at the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind School.