01 · Opening Wall
Mike Pizzella sold pen-and-ink drawings outside Saint Louis Cathedral through the late nineties and early aughts, framed work for New Orleans galleries and independent artists, and — in 2014 — opened a shop of his own in Mandeville so he could finally spend his days painting instead of clocking someone else’s hours.
The studio at The Market at Chenier is equal parts working atelier and private gallery. Oil on the palette, linen on the wall, conservation glass at the bench. You commission the work. You bring the piece that needs framing. You walk out with something made by hand.
— same hand since ’05.02 · Current Hang
03 · Commissioned Portraits
Pet portraits remain the most requested commission. Drag the handle on any piece below to see the reference photograph become the painting.
04 · The Artist
Mike was born in New Orleans and raised between the city and the Northshore. He earned his reputation the traditional way: on the pavement. For nine years he worked the pen-and-ink circuit outside Saint Louis Cathedral and cut mats for galleries in the Quarter. He has been painting seriously since 2005 — self-taught, market-taught, hand-taught.
The work lives in two registers. Tight realism for portraits — a commissioned spaniel, a child’s godparent gift, a fisherman’s first redfish. Looser impressionism for the landscapes — brushwork that remembers the light on Lake Pontchartrain at five o’clock in October.
I’ll paint big, small, cute, ugly cute, fins, feathers, fur or fangs. You tell me what it is. I’ll tell you what it takes.
05 · What Mike Does
Everything is quoted in-person. Nothing is outsourced. Nothing is rushed. If it leaves the studio with a Pizzella signature on it, Mike made it.
The most-requested work in the studio. Send photographs; Mike paints from them. Likenesses that hold up next to the dog sitting on the couch in front of the painting. Schnauzers welcome.
Decades behind the bench. Nine of those years framing for New Orleans galleries. Heirlooms, jerseys, diplomas, originals, stitched samplers, your grandmother’s Times-Picayune from 1967.
Pieces hanging now on the gallery wall — landscapes of the lake, crab-boat studies, the occasional still life of whatever Mike bought at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning.
06 · The Studio
The shop sits between Impastato Gallery and Niche Modern Home in an upscale mixed-use lifestyle center on US-190. Park in front. Come in without an appointment. The gallery wall turns over every few weeks.
Commissions and framing estimates are done in-person — the only way either is done properly. Bring the photograph. Bring the piece. Bring the thing in the box your mother-in-law gave you and has been living in the closet for three years.
07 · How a Commission Goes
Every commission begins with a photograph and ends with a piece of stretched linen you can take home. Here’s the rhythm of what happens in between.
Email a photograph — ideally taken in soft daylight, eye-level with the subject. Mike will reply the same week with what he can and can’t do from the source material.
A flat quote based on size, medium, and complexity. Fifty percent deposit reserves the easel. Gallery-grade linen stretched on hardwood bars is included.
Four to six weeks in the studio. You receive a progress photograph at the underpainting stage and again at the first pass of final color — opportunity to adjust, never pressure to.
You come collect the painting from the studio. If you’d like it framed — and most people do — Mike does that in-house, in a frame he’ll pick out with you.
08 · A Note from a Client
We brought Mike a blurry iPhone photograph of a dog that has been gone for six years. What came back off the easel looked at us the way she used to. I don’t have a better way to describe it than that.
— The Fontenot Family · Covington, LA · Commission, 2025
Pizzella’s commissioned work hangs in homes across St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, and as far as Jackson, Mississippi and Houston, Texas. Every piece is signed, dated, and titled on the back of the stretcher by hand.
09 · Open Commissions
Commissions currently open for spring 2026. Portraits, landscapes, and subject-to-ask everything in between. Framing quotes always in-person at the Mandeville studio.