User:Venuso Art/sandbox

Izabela Venuso /Okonska/ is a Polish portrait artist living in Birmingham, West Midlands, England.

From her earliest years, Izabela has had a fascination with art, but has never undertaken any formal study of the subject. The direction of her life totally changed when she met an art teacher who developed and refined her skills, and she began painting portraits in her mid-thirties.

Izabela has been privileged to paint portraits of numerous well-known figures from the business and political world of the, for example:
 * Andrew Mitchell, MP for Sutton Coldfield, former Chief Whip of the House of Commons and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury;

In her portrait painting, Izabela strives to capture the essence of her subjects’ character and mood, their favourite objects, and the unique living environment of their lovely homes.
 * Simon Topman, Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands, a prominent businessman, a former President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, and current Chair of Millenium Point,
 * Deborah Topman, Director of J. Hudson & Co (Whistles) Ltd, in Birmingham.

Izabela is proud of her roots, and Bialystok, her home town in, is where Ludwig Zamenhof invented Esperanto, the international language.

Her choice of artist’s name, ‘Venuso’ - Esperanto for ‘Venus’ - is a conscious combination, celebrating of the town and country of her birth with the core qualities of Venus which she wants to embody in her art: love, attraction, ambition, beauty and passion.

Izabela has a keen interest in charitable work, where possible making use of her own art and her connections in the art world to benefit good causes. Currently, these are:
 * raising funds for a local girl needing expensive, hopefully life-saving, cancer treatment in; and

Izabela’s most recent show was at the Parallax Art Fair Group Exhibition in Chelsea Old Town Hall in London.
 * contributing to the Mayor of Walsall’s charity, providing professional counselling for adolescents with a variety of mental health issues.