Venetia Syms is a British contemporary painter born in Belfast in 1990. She trained in classical portraiture at the Charles Cecil Studios in Florence before continuing her studies at University College Falmouth and the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. Her work has been widely exhibited across the UK, Amsterdam, and New York, and she appeared as a featured contestant on Sky Arts’ Landscape Artist of the Year.

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Working primarily from life, Venetia’s practice moves between expressive botanical still lifes and impasto landscapes inspired by the changing light and landscape of the British and French countryside. Though studio-based, she often works en plein air, using direct observation as the starting point for paintings that balance structure with instinctive mark-making.

Bold colour, palette knife painting, and richly layered surfaces define her work. Drawing inspiration from texture, pattern, light, and atmosphere, Venetia uses paint in an intuitive and physical way, creating compositions that feel both energetic and deeply tactile. Her paintings explore the relationship between observation and abstraction, celebrating both the natural world and the expressive possibilities of colour itself.

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Her upcoming solo exhibition at Hommage on the King’s Road during Chelsea Flower Show week marks an important moment within her practice, preceding her relocation to the south west of France, where the surrounding landscape will continue to shape the next evolution of her work.