Born in Liverpool, Mike O'Neill studied Display & Exhibition Design and Art & Design at Bootle College of Art in Liverpool. For many years he worked as a Display Artist for various companies and department stores as well as Chanel Perfumes & Cosmetics, before he became a self employed Artist & Designer. During this time he also designed a number of multi media events and collaborated with Ben Williams to compose the electronic music for several dance works, including 'Flee' by Edwin Lung, premiered at The Place, Charing Cross, London in 1996. Other electronic music he composed was under the name Myth Gestalt Musik. Music Technology Magazine in the 1990's called Myth Gestalt Musik ' Dark, haunting and majestic' This could also be said about many of the images he creates, whether with paint or using digital media. He always looks behind the obvious, from a different perspective, to search for something new. The result is Incandescent images often perplexing and ambiguous, yet always intriguing.

Poet and Painter Ian Claridge said of Mikes work '' Mike O'Neill with his painting powerfully exploring the nature of the psyche in subconscious dreamscapes and expressionistic abstracts''

'' The image is a pure creation of the spirit''
Pierre Reverdy (poet) 1918

Mikes paintings have been exhibited in London, Edinburgh, Bristol, Torquay,  Glastonbury and the Forest of Dean at both solo and group exhibitions. He now lives and works in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.