Michelle Vella

Canadian, Toronto-based pop artist Michelle Vella is known for her colourful, bold, and energetic portrayals of pop culture icons and things. With a degree in fine arts and a history working in graphic design, she made a career change in 2015 to pursue art full-time. Instagram propelled the near-instant success of her wide big eye portraits on the NY fashion scene.  She soon began painting on large square canvases, selling her portraits of such pop icons as Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, and Twiggy to collectors worldwide. In 2021, Vella began exploring a new style of big eyes with a quasi-realistic technique, and she began painting pop iconography like a retro box of Kraft Dinner, to the spinner from the game of Twister. Michelle is bursting with fun ideas and can hardly paint fast enough. 

Artist Statement:

"I always had an affinity for nostalgic pop culture, which gives me my inspiration for what I paint, which I guess makes me a pop artist. That nostalgic feeling I get is always fun and happy which translates through my colourful work. My Wide-Big-Eye portraits have changed somewhat, now the eyes are big, but they stay within the frame of the face. I dropped the black outlines and flat paint surfaces for a more quasi-realist look, plus simpler single colour backgrounds to bring more focus to the subject itself. I paint what makes me smile, simple as that."