A CREWE artist has donated his portrait of American actress Liza Minnelli to an art gallery which is raising money for charity.

Mark Sheeky completed the celebrated picture back in 2005 and it takes pride of place among his vast collection of over 1,000 paintings.

The talented artist is also a musician, with his latest album due for release later this week, and he is also a published author on the topic of surrealism.

Mark's Minelli oil painting, which would ordinarily sell for around £400, will go on view at a new gallery launching at Barnardo's charity shop in Macclesfield on June 1.

Art for Charity's profits will go towards the charity's work with vulnerable children.

As well as the Crewe artist, others exhibiting include punk icon Gaye Black, who played in seventies band The Adverts.

Mark said: "This is one of my early works and there aren't many from this era. Classical artists use layers of oil paint and I used two for this so it has that translucency of colour.

"I was really happy to donate it. It's a striking painting with a nice looking frame so I'm hoping someone will love it."

"There's something sad and special about the painting which I've always liked."

"These have been hard times for artists, and they have been hard for charities and charity shops too, so I thought they could use a hand."

Mark has run open mic nights at Wistaston Memorial Hall and his awards include the Chester Grosvenor Open Prize.

He says his latest art-rock release, 'Nightfood', is based around two 'sonatas' - two works of three or four parts with an overall theme or idea to them, including two electro-pop songs and a computer game theme with piano similar to a 90s club track.

Mark added: "I've been writing music for about 20 years and most of the early music was very electronic and inspired by computer games. But I'm really steering away from that now.

"Nightfood is my 27th original album release and I've always self-published. I don't make music commercially as much as the art expression, so I've never pursued record companies or things like that - it's only in the last five or six years that I've performed live at all."