Discover a breathtaking curated collection capturing Stella’s creative expression and unique style
Hope of a New World
4 m x 4 m
Acrylic mural painting on brick wall
The bleached coral spreads turning everything white. The left side has been wiped of all life. As seen on the ground, only rock, dust and the skeletons of previous animals remain. The colourful side shows the diversity of flora and fauna that have not been polluted yet. Many predators and prey swim together with a common goal of getting away from the toxins below. Some unsuspecting marine creatures continue to go about their day. Shining through the water, the ray of light symbolizes hope. The marine animals, bones and corals in the painting were inspired by various real species including the killer whale, zebra fish, schools of fish, whale bones, sea lion bones, seahorse skeletons, sea anemone, brain coral, shelf coral, branch coral, tube coral, seagrass and more. The background was painted to mimic watercolour. Painting in the cracks of the bricks and pipes were a challenging yet interesting process as the marine animals and coral were slightly warped in shape around the bricks/pipe.
Incognito
6cm x 7cm x 6cm and 7cm x 8cm x 7cm
Clay and glaze ceramics
I fell in love from the first sip. Tea time became more than a routine in my life— it became a quiet celebration of the season. Most importantly, I discovered the joy of tea time with another person. This piece is a poem to that person with two pieces to depict the two of us. At first glance, they appear to be nothing more than a nut and a gourd. However, this is but a disguise. Open them and they reveal their true purpose. They are vessels that can hold more than what they seem. Each cup was carefully formed on the pottery wheel, with handles shaped separately and then attached. The ombré glaze on the acorn was brushed on by hand. Red, orange and yellow glazes were blended with a brush to give a painterly feel. The caps of both pieces were crafted apart from the bases, designed to fit seamlessly. The nut and gourd symbolize a bountiful harvest, the simple beauty of fall and the joy found in sharing something simple with someone special.
You Said What?!
36 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm
Clay and glaze sculpture
Her name was Suki. My Aunt’s dog and my childhood friend. I met her when I was in elementary school and have grown up with her since. When she was reaching the end of her time, my Aunt called me to see her one last time. Suki left the next day. This piece is based on a real photo of Suki wearing a dog hoodie. In the version with the background, there are various types of linen, curved and straight, folded around different lengths of wire, depicting a surreal, dreamlike place. This imagined space represents where I hope she is now. Warm and safe. The clay sculpture is hollow inside. Fur was crafted using a thin needle tool. Multiple layers of glaze were painted on the piece to create the solid colours. Suki is caught doing a side-eye, equal parts surprised and unimpressed — a look only she could pull off so perfectly. I remember being there when the photo was taken. Suki was rather stiff in the hoodie when taking this photo, clearly not thrilled about the outfit.
Fish In a Fish
2 m x 1 m x 1 m
plastic wrap, invisible tape, wire, plastic bottles, hot glue, acrylic paint, and clay armature
It started with a fish — one that had eaten so much plastic that it became reduced to a skeleton and a lingering spirit. This piece is a haunting reminder of the impact pollution leaves behind. The fish’s spirit now resides inside its own ribcage. Bones were inspired by the dragon skeleton rollercoaster in the video game Mario. The piece explores the environmental consequences of microplastic buildup in marine life. Countless small pieces can accumulate to impact the health of the ecosystem. The fish was made with cut plastic bottles and paint. Clay was sculpted to form each bone, wrapped in plastic and sealed with invisible tape. Once dry, the clay was removed by carefully cutting the tape-and-plastic shell in half with an exacto knife. These hollow “bones” were then reassembled and taped back together. Multiple pieces of wire were then wrapped with plastic and tape in the same way and strung through the bones, giving the final structure. A ghostly, fragile ecosystem.
Staircase to Mountainside
21cm x 28 cm
Pencil drawing
Dipped in Silver
(bottom left)
23 cm x 30 cm
Pencil drawing
Longing
(bottom right)
56 cm x 76 cm
Charcoal drawing
Different states of being unfold across three pieces. In “Longing”, I worked from live models posed on carefully arranged fabric. The man is lost in thought. The man’s gaze wanders into the distance with quiet melancholy. This piece was created in charcoal, and the background was softened with both charcoal and charcoal powder. The light pouring in from the left casts deep shadows on the right, accentuating the weary lines of his face. “Staircase to Mountainside” combines two places: a log cabin that I had visited before and a castle that I had only known through books and imagination. The drawing was done in two-point perspective. Some details, including the sunlight through the window and the spiral staircase, are based on the text in the Harry Potter Books. “Dipped in Silver” depicts an arrangement of apples, a kettle and a cloth. The reflective shine is inspired by a pool of silver from a book. The seamless blending done with a smudge stick gives the objects a soft glow.
Clear gaze
(left)
23 cm x 30 cm
Coloured pencil drawing
Snowy Night Lights
(top right)
23 cm x 30 cm
Coloured pencil, pastel, acrylic paint drawing
Santa
(bottom right)
23 cm x 30 cm
Coloured pencil, pastel, acrylic paint drawing
There’s something powerful about warmth in unexpected places — in a lion’s gaze, a snowy mailbox, or a glowing cabin deep in the woods. “Clear gaze” depicts a lion with a mixture of orange, yellow and black fur. The whiskers were painted on with white acrylic paint. The gaze of the lion is warm, calm and yet dangerous at the same time. “Santa” presents a heartwarming image that captures the dream of finding a puppy on Christmas morning. The subjects were drawn with coloured pencil, the background blended with pastel and the snow dotted with acrylic paint. “A Warm Glow on a Snowy Night”, in contrast, depicts a cabin tucked in the woods with the lights pouring out of frosted windows and smoke rising from the chimneys. Similar to “Santa”, this piece was also made with mixed media. The trees were drawn with acrylic paint using very thin brushes, and the smoke was smudged with a smudge stick. It’s magical finding a warm glow from a window on a snowy night.
Bittersweet
50cm x 20cm x 20cm
Clay and glaze sculpture
Can sweetness exist without bitterness? This is an artwork born from a quote, an animation and a game. In the anime “Snow White with the Red Hair,” a character compares people to plants. The roots are bitter, but the flowers are sweet, whereas people can have two sides as well. It is only when one accepts both that one can truly appreciate their beauty. The sculpture has a sweet flower with a hamster sitting in it and bitter-tasting lotus pods all around. Lotus pods are edible and used in many dishes. The hamster in the flower was inspired by a pet collecting game called chickensmoothie. Inside the trunk, the space is hollow. A real melon peel was used to support the leaning side of the trunk when it was drying to prevent collapse. The lotus pad, flower and hamster were attached on top, and the lotus pods were attached with glue, everything glazed. The fired piece cracked at the roots of the trunk, but these cracks only make the trunk seem more whimsical.
Blunt Yet Deadly
1 m x 1 m
Paper mache, gesso, wooden sticks, paper, hot glue, permanent marker, compressed charcoal, cloth, and plastic covered clay sculpture
Frustration. It’s a human instinct to read and understand, but none of them make sense. They are indistinguishable scribbles and burnt pieces of paper. Why is it that some are built to understand when they themselves cannot be understood? This quote lies at the heart of this artwork. The scenery envisions a battlefield. A place where a person is put upon entering the world. Words are constantly raining down like arrows, scattering all around and sometimes lodging in a person. Even through all the pain and suffering, one still chooses to go on by helping another. The two figures were made with clay underneath, which was then covered with plastic and paper mache and painted with acrylic. The arrows were made using wooden skewer sticks, paper and glue. Writings on the arrows were made with permanent marker, compressed charcoal and fire. Using a lighter, the edges of the paper arrows were burnt. These arrows are placed into the clay underneath the figure.
Life’s Elixir
30 cm x 400 cm
Coloured pencil, pen, glue and string on paper
Where do we come from and where do we go when it’s over? This piece explores that timeless question through three inspiring words: energy, improvement and guideline. I created a scroll inspired by Harry Potter where students submit their homework in ink on parchment. It tells the story of a person’s life through comic-style frames, arranged within the spirals of a DNA strand. Each set of three frames shows a stage of life with a challenge, a struggle, and a solution. The faceless figures allow viewers to project their own emotions and experiences onto the scenes. The movement of the figures towards the next stage also changes with age: the younger versions run eagerly into the future, while older versions walk or stand still. I connected the human figures with a red string acting as a timeline, which “strings together”. At each end of the scroll, I burned the paper to represent that no one knows where one comes from nor where one will go.
Unravel My Mind
43 cm x 43 cm
Black and white magazines, glue, and permanent marker on paper
What if a single door could take you anywhere to a memory, a dream, or a world turned upside down? There is order in the chaos. Inspired by “The Book of Doors” and the episode about “pandemonium” from the animation “Fairy Tail”, this piece combines both the concept of the book and the animation. In the book, magic allows you to open a door to any place you can imagine – past, present, future, visited or dreamed about. The door could be a door of any building or even a door in your house. In the animation, a castle dungeon appears from the sky upside-down, and the character steps in to discover that they are standing on the ceiling. Images of historic buildings and staircases of text were cut out from an old black and white magazine. They twist and float through the scene, detached from logic or gravity. The checkerboard pattern, drawn with a permanent marker, is warped in scattered points across the composition, distorting perspective and creating an illusion.
Hogsmeade at Dusk
60 cm x 40 cm
Ink print and linoleum block
The world through the eyes of a vampire is stripped of colour, frozen in time, yet rich in shadow and detail. An arched doorway frames the scene, leading into the village of Hogsmeade from Harry Potter. The winding streets are lined with shops, and the rooftops are blanketed in snow. In the distance, the outline of a castle rises against a pale, faded sky. A photo I took in Harry Potter, Universal Studios was used as inspiration for this piece. The piece was made by carving into a linoleum block using specialized carving tools and printing onto paper. Detailed, close-up views on the right highlight the mark-making techniques used on the linoleum. Deep gouges show the snow-laden rooftops, cross-hatching gives texture to the cobblestone path, clean lines define the brickwork, and stippling brings the light into the arched windows. The final print is shown on the left above the linoleum block. This is a reimagined Hogsmeade through the eyes of something not quite human.
Elysium
43 cm x 20 cm x 30 cm
Wood, acrylic paint, hot glue and bunny ear headbands sculpture
Imagine an island moving through the air powered not by engines, but by giant, flapping ears. The piece depicts an island where the ears act as propellers to move the island as it floats through the air. The concept arrived from a scene in the animation “Fairy Tail” where the characters encounter a floating cube that is actually a monster in disguise. Like the cube, this island has no single dominant side. Every angle reveals something new, and it drifts unpredictably through space. The wood block was first shaped with a machine and then carved with a chisel. Its edges were smoothed with electric sanding tools and fine sandpaper to create rounded contours. All of the wood was then painted white. The ears or propellers of the island were made from bunny ear headbands. The larger ears were cut directly from the headbands and attached with hot glue, while the smaller ears were made by hand through trimming and shaping the headband rims before gluing.
Singing Silence
30 cm x 40 cm
Acrylic paint, flowers and leaves, rubber glue, paper and tape
Nature is mysterious. Plants bloom in colours, shapes, and sizes so strange and beautiful, they almost feel otherworldly. The leaves and flowers are real and sourced from my collection of plants from Alberta and BC. It’s a tropical jungle meeting a coral reef inspired by an animation. To keep the organic materials from browning, each leaf or flower was pressed flat onto paper and carefully sealed with tape, ensuring no air bubbles reached the edges. This method locks in their vibrant hues, although some colours still change. Especially in the flowers, the light colours darkened, adding unexpected depth and variation. After drying for a few days, the plants were cut out, leaving a border around them and glued onto the canvas using rubber glue. These were arranged to personify mushrooms, cacti, seaweed and anemone like a jungle and underwater world. The background was painted with acrylic, while the branch and mermaid were created separately, painted and then glued onto the canvas.
Frozen Flames
(top)
23 cm x 30 cm
Martini glass design
Pot in a Pot
(bottom)
23 cm x 30 cm
Salt and pepper shaker design
What if everyday items could bring fantasy to life – a martini glass glowing like frozen flames or a salt and pepper shaker disguised as a plant in a pot? These two pieces reimagine everyday items with inspiration from beloved games and animations. The martini glass was inspired by a flame in the animated movie “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Studio Ghibli and the salt and pepper shakers from the plants in the game “Plants vs Zombies”. The flames on the top and bottom of the glass flare outward. In Plants vs Zombies, the cheerful plants in the game are alive and fight the zombies that try to invade their owner’s house. Here, the salt shaker is the flower shaker, and the pepper shaker is the pot – the flower is designed to fit seamlessly into the pot. The initial designs were done with a pencil and then refined with a thin black ink. To ensure symmetry, the circles for both were drawn with circle compass tools. Numerous rough draft circles were drawn before the final drawing.
Be A Little Dentist Day
Digital and painted poster
A slice of heaven, of sunset and waves on a poster. The soft ombre background fades from yellow to pink and draws inspiration from a sunset. In the center, the heart-shaped frame holds an acrylic painting, painted separately on canvas and then placed in a frame in the poster. It gives the impression of a window to another world. The water in the painting echoes the water reflections of light shining on water. The heart-shaped toothpaste was inspired by a stone in a Barbie animation. The character finds a glowing heart-shaped stone in a river, which turns out to possess magical qualities. The toothbrush underneath reinforces the dental theme of the poster and also seems to “offer” the heart like a text message to the viewer. Circular and bookmark-like frames inspired by an ice cream poster are used to highlight the details of the event. The logo of the tooth and shooting star on the bottom right of the page was drawn digitally, specifically for the event.