Painter By Mouth

Professor of Perspective, Royal Academy of Art

‘Painting is always a challenge, the arriving at a personal language, the mastering of technique both of drawing and of painting, the sheer physical effort and commitment.

Keith Jansz took up the challenge when he became tetraplegic. He had lost the use of his hands and legs in a tragic road accident in 1995, and was paralysed from the neck down. He turned to painting, with the added challenge of painting with his mouth not his hands.

To begin with Keith needed help, encouragement and inspiration, and he received these from fellow artists in the Mouth & Foot Painting Artists. An active sportsman before his accident Keith knew what it was to push himself to his limits and this he now did with his painting, soon holding exhibitions of his work which attracted great interest and admiration.

Keith’s work is full of light and colour. Above all else it is full of joy.

In Keith’s own words

‘I love to feel my brush dance across the canvas and give back to me the sensation of movement which my body now lacks.’

More than anything else art must be life enhancing. Keith’s work is precisely that, because it is not only true for the viewer but the artist too.’

Ken Howard R.A.