about Michelle Morby

Illustrator of Bay Area Architects

Born in the glamorous city of Buenos Aires and adopted at a young age, Michelle Morby spent her formative years in the U.S., splitting her time between either coast and Western Pennsylvania. Morby received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, but began her career as an artist in earnest while living in Paris. There, she embraced the storied tradition of street photography, a medium inextricable from that city’s allure. It was an experience formative to her staunch belief that media is intrinsic to concept and which has led to in-depth investigations of photography, video, installation, performance, and happenings. 

Her ongoing series of paintings are themselves performative in nature, explicating the foibles of the human condition that make us sublime, ridiculous, and real. These portraits of individuals drawn from contemporary events, history, forgotten narratives, pop culture, and her own life joyfully and subversively illuminate the themes found in all of her work: mythos, desire, transformation, and belonging. 

Morby’s work is as well-traveled as the artist herself, included in exhibitions in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cambridge, Paris, and Reykjavik, among others. She is the founder of the Dinner Party residency, which has been ongoing since 2012. She currently lives in San Francisco living betwixt trees and fog.