Sylvia Amélia has lived with nature since she was a child. In the 60's she moved to Itaipava (RJ), at the edge of Serra dos Órgãos, in the Atlantic Rainforest, where she dedicated her time to studing orchids. Nowadays she has an art studio in Petrópolis and continues working on watercolors of orchids with an characteristic sensibility, while keeping independent from any school of Botanical Illustration. Her watercolor paintings have gentle and sweet nuances, as do the ordchids in their native habitats.

She is an artist of prominence in the panorama of brazilian art in watercolor painting of flowers. Sylvia Amélia began exhibiting in 1993 and since then she has been showing her paintings in Brasil and abroad.

Her works are reproduced in magazines, diaries, T-shirts and in an English/Portuguese portifolio, published in France, by Naturalia Publications. She designed the logo of the Brazilian Society of Growers of Catassetideae (ABRAC). In 1997 and 1998 she showed her watercolors in various exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states, outstanding amongst them those of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Gardens, Casa da Princesa Isabel (Petrópolis-RJ) and Hebraica, in Sãoi Paulo.