I managed to run Venia frontend however facing the same issue. I have installed PWA venia in frontend magento 2.3.1 but images are not loading. Here are the comments to your questions. Please Help with your suggestions
Magento version : 2.3.1
Operating System + version: Ubuntu Linux 16.04
node.js version (node -v): v10.15.3
Yarn Version: 1.15.2
Note: Yes, Images are loading in local instance.
file / folder permissions yes
My instance is running on HTTPS
Please check the screenshot.