Victoria Beata

Victoria Beata is a British visual artist, illustrator, author and digital creator based on the Isle of Man. With a career spanning more than forty years across fine art, illustration, architectural visualisation and digital media, she is the creator of Tales of the Glen — an illustrated fantasy world rooted in Isle of Man folklore, landscape and folklore that has found a devoted international readership. Her independent publishing studio, Victoria Beata Limited, is incorporated in the Isle of Man and produces books, visual art, animation and transmedia content for a global audience.

Victoria's commitment to fine art began early. She completed her A-Level in Fine Art at King William's College, Isle of Man, before undertaking a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at University College Isle of Man, where tutors recognised her talent for political cartooning and visual narrative. She went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Fine Art from Liverpool John Moores University in 1996. Her tutors noted a distinctive illustrative sensibility in her work — a fusion of drawing, text, speech and cartooning within fine art practice that has remained central to her creative identity ever since.

Victoria's creative and commercial instincts were evident from an early age. At sixteen, she established her own business, a shop on the high street in the Isle of Man, selling screen-printed and hand-painted t-shirts, original artwork, jewellery and gifts. This early venture demonstrated both her artistic range and an entrepreneurial self-sufficiency that has characterised her career ever since.

Following graduation, Victoria established herself as a professional fine artist on the Isle of Man, exhibiting at the Sayle Gallery in Douglas and at The Courtyard Gallery, Tynwald Mills, St Johns.

 She was a prize winner in the Singer & Friedlander Watercolour Competition (Isle of Man) — the Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition was the largest and most prestigious watercolour competition in the United Kingdom, running from 1988 to 2008, with a dedicated Isle of Man competition during this period.

 Her work during this period was characterised by heavily drawn, mixed media narrative scenes — records of everyday life, human conversation and the small dramas of ordinary experience. A recurring subject was pigeons: observed, overheard, documented. The human condition in miniature.

Her paintings were sold through local retailers and to private collectors across the island.

Around 2000, Victoria wrote and illustrated an original series of children's books featuring two animal friends — Catty and Moomoo — living in a city and sharing small everyday adventures. She sought publication through traditional publishing routes at the time.

 Although the series was not published commercially, it represents an early and significant expression of the creative instincts that would later define Tales of the Glen: animal characters with distinct personalities, stories rooted in friendship, belonging and the quiet observation of everyday life. The creative thread running from Catty and Moomoo to Mouse and Rabbit in The Glen — separated by more than twenty years — is direct and clear. Tales of the Glen was not a sudden embrace of new technology but the eventual realisation of a long-held creative vision, finally made possible by tools that caught up with her imagination.

Victoria developed a parallel career in commercial illustration, producing greeting card designs that were sold through major UK high street retailers and stocked in the Tate London gift store — one of the most prestigious and selective retail outlets for art and illustration products in the United Kingdom. This commercial success demonstrated both the broad appeal of her visual style and her ability to produce work to professional industry standards at scale.

From approximately 2011, Victoria transitioned into fully CGI-based architectural illustration and 3D visualisation, developing professional expertise in digital image creation. This work drew on her longstanding fascination with fantasy, constructed space and imagined environments.

 During this period she also developed professional skills in copywriting, website development and digital marketing, and became an early practitioner of community building through social media — establishing two successful Instagram-based projects documenting the Isle of Man: one celebrating its natural landscape, the other recording the personal stories of its residents. Both grew substantial followings and demonstrated her lifelong interest in people, place and narrative.

 She also undertook a documentary photography project capturing Isle of Man residents in their homes — a body of work that reflects her career-long attention to the texture of everyday life.

In 2022, Victoria began integrating AI image-generation tools into her creative practice — not as a replacement for her artistic voice, but as an instrument within it, alongside pencils, notebooks, cameras, editing software, and forty years of accumulated creative knowledge.

 Inspired by her daily walks to Langness on the Isle of Man, where she regularly observed rabbits moving through the landscape, she conceived Tales of the Glen — a fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic characters living within the glens, coastlines and quiet places of the Isle of Man.

 The world of The Glen draws deeply on Isle of Man folklore and Celtic mythology, including the legend of Manannan Mac Lir, the ancient sea god said to raise his enchanted island from beneath the Irish Sea once every seven years. It is a world of Mouse and Rabbit and Owl; of fireside stories and frost on windows; of belonging, comfort and quiet magic.

Tales of the Glen has grown into a fully realised creative universe:

• Two published hardback books — Tales of the Glen and Rabbit Guardian of The Glen: Tales of the Glen — available internationally through Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Target, Indigo and major bookshops worldwide
• Over 15,000 copies sold since publication in 2025, distributed globally through Ingram Spark
• A global readership spanning multiple countries, with a primary audience in the United States
• The Glenfolk — a devoted online community active across YouTube, Facebook and Instagram
• Over 100,000 newsletter subscribers through The Glen Gazette
• Animation and visual narrative content bringing the world of The Glen to life
• Merchandise
• Readers who travel to the Isle of Man specifically to find the locations featured in the stories

The work has been described by readers as "like reading a hug," "a place I want to live in forever," and "pure comfort — every story feels like a warm cup of tea on a rainy day." It has been used in healthcare, therapeutic and educational settings.

Victoria Beata Limited is an independent publishing and creative studio incorporated in the Isle of Man (Company Registration Number: 137535C). The studio produces original illustrated books, visual art, animation, licensing content and transmedia storytelling — with the mission of creating work that reconnects readers with nature, imagination and a sense of belonging.

Throughout her career, Beata's work has been characterised by:

• Narrative and text — the integration of speech, conversation and written word within visual imagery
• The human condition — documentation of everyday life, human interaction and ordinary experience
• Place and belonging — a sustained engagement with the Isle of Man landscape, people and folklore
• Community — building audiences and creative communities around shared interest in place and story
• Technological exploration — successive adoption of new creative tools from traditional media through digital visualisation and CGI to AI-assisted image generation

Both titles are available via Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Target, Indigo and all major online and high street bookshops worldwide.

• Prize winner, Singer & Friedlander Watercolour Competition (Isle of Man)
• BA (Hons) Fine Art, Liverpool John Moores University, 1996
• Exhibitor, Sayle Gallery, Douglas, Isle of Man
• Exhibitor, The Courtyard Gallery, Tynwald Mills, St Johns, Isle of Man

• Founder, Victoria Beata Limited — Isle of Man registered company, 2023

1. Victoria Beata author profile — Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55674336.Victoria_Beata
2. Tales of the Glen — Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Glen-Victoria-Beata/dp/1068356006
3. Tales of the Glen — Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tales-of-the-glen/victoria-beata/9781068356001
4. Tales of the Glen — Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tales-of-the-glen-victoria-beata/1147260269
5. Tales of the Glen — Target: https://www.target.com/p/tales-of-the-glen-tales-of-the-glen-by-victoria-beata-hardcover/-/A-1003825119
6. Tales of the Glen — Indigo (Canada): https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/tales-of-the-glen
7. Rabbit Guardian of The Glen — Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rabbit-Guardian-Glen-Tales/dp/1068356014
8. ISBN record — Tales of the Glen: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9781068356001
9. ISBN record — Rabbit Guardian of The Glen: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9781068356018
10. Victoria Beata — official website: https://www.victoriabeata.com
11. About Victoria Beata: https://www.victoriabeata.com/about-1/
12. Victoria Beata Limited — Isle of Man Companies Registry, Company Number 137535C

• Official website: https://www.victoriabeata.com
• Victoria Beata Publishing webshop: https://victoriabeata.shop
• Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55674336.Victoria_Beata