We recently connected with Tamara Venn and have shared our conversation below.

TAMARA, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I’d been working as a freelance illustrator for about ten years. That continued when I moved to Siem Reap, Cambodia but its only been the past three years since Covid that I’ve found my stride in painting, and for the first time in my career have managed to not live hand to mouth as a freelancer.
When living in London during and after university I struggled to keep regular jobs, mostly retail and barwork. I was fired from most of those jobs, always for ridiculous reasons like not having the right coloured footwear or standing up to bully bosses. So going freelance made sense and I enjoyed being my own boss. It was just the instability of getting work and being paid that was the downside.
When I got to Cambodia my mural work took off and I was in demand for lots of big scale painting jobs but Covid put a stop to that. My work dried up and like so many people I was just about getting by. And then I painted my first canvas piece, a water buffalo in a rice field and things took off! Since then I have had two exhibitions, collaborated with my favourite jewellery company and am about to open my first gallery, if someone was to tell me three years ago this was all going to happen I would never have believed them!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always been an outdoors person and nature is a huge part of my life. Moving to Siem Reap was mainly because my brother and his family were living here but from my first trip I fell in love with Cambodia’s countryside and wildlife.
When I began painting my first series of works, titled ‘Kaleidoscope’, I chose to capture moments I encountered with wildlife here during Covid. For example, the birds living at the Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world, the Great Hornbills that fly freely across the skyline of Phnom Penh the capital city and the cows and water buffalo that roam the Angkor Archeological Park (and swim in the world famous Angkor Wat moat.) There was so much to see and I wanted to learn about all of it!

My latest exhibition ‘A Land in Flux’ was about capturing the beauty this time as well as the peril of the collision of nature and humans and the subsequent threat that has to Cambodia’s ecosystems. Cambodia is one of the most heavily deforested countries in the world and has very lax rules when it comes to conservation. My aim with all my work is to highlight the importance of protecting nature and what we can do to reduce the damage we leave behind us.

I’m proud of the brilliant organizations and people I have met working in the conservation world here and from each exhibition I donate a percentage of sales to these projects. From groups deploying anti-trawling blocks in the ocean to protect endangered sea life to forest restoration and protection. This combination of art and conservation is the perfect motivator for me and I will continue to create work as long as I can – I’m so lucky to know I’ve found my dream job. I hope I have encouraged people to look closer at the natural world around them and appreciate what we are still so lucky to have.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

There are so many rewards to being an artist. I’m my own boss for one and that freedom is so important for me. But the most rewarding element is that I get to make art that has a purpose. Painting is one of human’s oldest forms of communication and storytelling and that is something that will never go away. Art is so important to our history, our present and our future. My work brings joy to people of all ages, from all over the world and at the same time highlights critical issues such as environmental breakdown and climate change. I get to create beautiful things and share my message at the same time.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’m not entirely sure this shows resilience but maybe it is relevant….. At the start of covid when all my mural and illustration work dried up I began painting on locally made rattan woven bags and fans which I bought from one of the nearby villages. (The bags are called ‘chicken bags’ in the provinces because thats how people transport their chickens.)

I created The Lip and Eye bags and fans which sold really well and got me through some difficult financial times. This year in May I collaborated with an incredible jewellery company called Penh Lenh, based in Phnom Penh. Its an all woman run business that trains and empowers Cambodian woman. We created the ‘Cambodia Collection’ – eight designs engraved onto gold-fill pendants including the Lip / Eye design which is being released as an exclusive when my gallery opens next month. This necklace is like my recognition of a dream coming true (the exhibitions, the gallery, the collab) and that even though things can look bleak, good things will always happen if you believe they will :)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tamaravenn.com
• Instagram: tamara_venn_art