“Knowing that on the walls of houses adults and children alike stare with grand imaginations and wonder at the scenes I paint excites and motivates me to bring the best I can to the canvas.”

Hi, I’m Leslie Venola an oil painter artist living on a small acreage next to a National park in the North East of Victoria, Australia.

I am a self-taught artist who paints in the multilayered techniques developed by the traditional masters of our art. My paintings could well be described as figurative, realism, imaginary, wildlife, symbolism, set usually in a landscape, if one was attempting to classify it.

My narratives are inspired by experiences in meditations, by observing humans and creatures and very much from music, olde stories and tales.

As an artist I am led by emotion and it is my intention that my paintings spark an emotional recognition of the love, beauty and magic for people of that which exists all around us and often goes unnoticed.

My art salutes the connection we have to all the natural Kingdoms, our Earth and each other.  I am interested in humanity, love in all its aspects, the mystical, spiritual and esoteric, the magic of childhood, wildlife, traditional tales and human beauty. It is my intentions to keep exploring, developing and telling my stories through art.

A painting has the power to transform people, to open up to wonderment, inspiration where there was once only the mundane. The paintings may ignite a lost memory of a forgotten time in their lives and also cause them to look at something with a fresh outlook. I know from personal experience in my early 20s when a certain painting opened my mind to a whole mysterious world that to this day inspirers me still.

“Put yourself in the picture”

Commissions welcome for figurative/portraiture work.