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Mural Artist

Coleen Henry's Art Is Inspired By A Life Well-Lived

A Venice local since age 18, Coleen Henry has painted gorgeous murals all over the Gulf Coast. Her themes run from undersea life, to birds, to religious and historical motifs. Self-trained, Coleen’s striking murals are as interesting as the life she has lived. After all, she has spent much of it traveling the country with her husband Jim, a commercial hot air balloon pilot.

“We flew balloons for Disney and other big corporations,” Coleen says. “Jim’s semi-retired and misses flying but he’s just not able to because the area has become so built up, there are no good spaces for flying here anymore.”

Coleen painted her first mural for her church more than 20 years ago. 

“When I was a kid, my father had a printing business,” Coleen explains. “I would take his clip art and copy that over and over. That’s how I developed good drawing skills. When I came to Venice, I wanted to go to Ringling College, but I met Jim and got detoured with the balloons and having a family (Coleen and Jim have two adult sons, Christopher and Tim). Then I helped paint a mural in our church and my mural painting career took off.”

These days, Coleen is hired to paint murals everywhere from private residences to large public spaces. She painted the history mural on the Venice Gondolier print shop, as well as the murals on the Jacaranda library. She’s painted murals for restaurants, municipal water storage tanks, and many churches.

Recently, she has been painting new murals at the downtown Venice Post Office, a project supported by VABI. 

“It really has been a joy to paint these murals because the appreciation I get has been amazing,” she says. “I have been overwhelmed with the compliments of the people walking by. Just over and over, people keep saying, ‘Thank you, thank you.’”

The murals feature a sandhill crane family, colorful flowers, and a bougainvillea trellis. Coleen can be hired to paint any sort of mural.

“I like doing whimsical themes,” she says. “But I will paint pretty much anything.”

941.525.0872. Chenryart@comcast.net. Chenryart.com.

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