This art work was originally painted of two eyes, each on it's own round canvases, with LOVE in the pupil on the left and HOPE in the pupil on the right. In this one of a kind animated version, I was able to combine the vision of two eyes into one, and with each blink of the eye, you see LOVE and then HOPE. I painted this in 2020, at the start of the first Covid lockdown and wanted to create a vision for what I see. It's a self portrait really, based on my eyes and my outlook. Do you see what I see? love, hope, unity, colour, happy, positivity, caring, courage, trust, optimism, giving and togetherness. Influenced by Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE and HOPE series which became a symbol of unity during the turmoil of the 1960's. I thought is fitting to re-use his symbols to empower us through this tumultuous time and envision Love and Hope for all.

What do you see when looking into someone's eyes? do you get lost in that persons authentic truth or are you finding your truth. In my series of big eye portraits, I often wonder how we see the person in the portrait. Do we see their soul, who they are or are we finding ourselves in their eyes? Perhaps "truth" is in the eye of the beholder.

Our eyes speak the loudest and most authentic truth. It is said that our eyes are a portal into our souls and it is only in someone's eyes that we can get both lost and found." ~ Sandra Szubert

Painted by Michelle Vella in 2020, Professionally scanned and digitized in 2020, animated by Michelle Vella in 2021.

"I always had an affinity for nostalgic pop culture which feeds my inspiration for the subjects that I paint. That nostalgic feeling I get is always fun and happy which translates through my colourful work and I want viewers to share in that same feeling. I focus on the subjects eyes and paint their eyes BIG. It started as my signature style, big and wide eyes, but now they are just big. Why big eyes? it's just what came out of me." ~ Michelle Vella