Vanitas

Still Life

♾️

Vanitas is a genre of still life painting that uses symbolic objects to reflect on the transience of life and the inevitability of death. It reminds viewers that worldly beauty and material pleasures are fleeting.

Michele has always had an affinity for vanitas. As she moves through life, she continues to reflect on the difficult themes she is confronted with. Mortality is something many people rarely allow themselves to consider, yet Michele has been involuntarily drawn into its conversations through the many losses she has experienced. Over time, she has come to understand vanitas not only as a visual tradition but as a mindset — a way of seeing the world that extends far beyond drawing and painting. Her visual art, found here, is the natural expression of that perspective

Michele believes vanitas can and should be moved out of dark, candle-lit corners to contemporary settings using imagery and color palettes that speak to our time. Here, you will find work that engages metaphor, symbology, memorial, memento mori, and literal interpretations of the relationship between Life and Death.