Michelle Marie DeMars is an artist, illustrator, designer, dabbler, and data analyst originally from the east coast, currently residing in Kansas City, MO. Her art explores an evolving personal mythology built on dreams, folklore, childhood fairy tales, & even (occasionally) real life. She primarily creates using watercolor, ink, & colored pencil, but she has been known to work in many mediums including charcoal, pastel, tea, & pixels - or anything else within reach. Her influences include Edward Burne-Jones, Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke & Lauren Marx. She also has a deep seated love for medieval illuminated manuscripts.
In addition to earning a BFA in Illustration from Virginia Commonwealth University, she attended The Illustration Academy in both 2001 & 2016. Her work has been shown at the Springfield Art Museum MOAK 12, the Elmhurst Artists Guild International in 2013, and the Hilliard Gallery 2019 Figure Exhibition.
She’s a graduate of the EdX Data Analytics Bootcamp as hosted through the University of Kansas, and briefly dabbled in Data Analytics and COmputer Science at Johnson County Community College. There was also a brief stint as an EdX TA prior to enrolling in JCCC.
And yes, she used to be a fusion bellydance performer - with several since-dissolved bellydance troupes, but primarily as a soloist, and also for a brief stint with a national traveling cirque group - usually with fire fans. She dropped out of the dance scene in 2015 when it stopped being fun anymore, but still frequently dances alone in her home when noone is looking.
She goes by Michelle, or Marie, but never Geoff* . She lives with her husband in semi-broken house that has been described as a museum. When not art-making she plays games of all sorts, reads too much or too little depending on the week, plays mandolin, works as Lead Artist & Productivity Analyst for a yearbook company, and is kind of working on a book amongst 42 other projects.
*Seriously Geoffrey, I’m tired of getting your spam texts
Site last updated 1/31/26