Keith Jansz
What an inspiration to talk to Keith Jansz, who rang up from England last week to order a Guerrilla Box. In 1995, he was paralized in a car accident and has learned to paint using his mouth to hold the brush.
In December 1996 Keith’s mother-in-law gave him a book entitled ‘Painters First’, a collection of biographies of the Mouth & Foot Painting Artists. Keith was able to empathise with the artists tragic stories and was inspired by reading of their triumphs and successes. Eager to encourage this spark of interest, Keith’s wife, Cindy, arranged a meeting with the mouth artist Trevor Wells who persuaded Keith to try painting by holding a brush in his mouth. Despite disastrous early efforts Keith persevered, and in 1998 he was accepted as a Student Artist by the international organisation. This achievement spurred Keith on to work with such determination that in 2000 he was promoted to a full Member Artist within the Association.
Keith enjoys exploring the sensations of light in his paintings, from the sparkling reflective sunlit at the beach to the unique atmospheric light in Venice and the long shadows of winter light on snow. He also enjoys the demanding discipline of painting the human figure, in pastel or oil. Like his heroes the Impressionists, Keith revels in the challenge of painting ‘en plein air‘ to capture the most authentic effect, completing his paintings in the studio.
Keith’s paintings have been sold as reproductions worldwide. He has held a number of solo exhibitions in the UK and Italy and his paintings have been exhibited in museums around the world including Lisbon, Madrid, Copenhagen, Shanghai and Atlanta.
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Sarah Judson
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