Profiles

Just two months after completing the London Marathon in 1995 Keith Jansz’ life was changed forever after a horrific car crash left him with a broken neck and paralysed from the chest down.

"I woke up not knowing what happened but feeling trapped," is how Keith describes the experience of waking up in a hospital bed. Following the accident he spent seven months in Stoke Mandeville Hospital before coming home to what he called "a very different life".

Prior to the accident Keith had led a very active life and was heavily involved with football and athletics and he described the realisation that he would never participate in these sports again as "very dark days indeed".

These feelings all changed upon receiving a book from his mother-in-law entitled ‘Painters First’. The book, a compilation of biographies of Mouth and Foot artists, proved a source of inspiration: "a spark was lit which is still burning fiercely today."

Despite disastrous early efforts the process of mouth painting proved cathartic for Keith. "When I was painting I started thinking a lot less about my own situation. I was motivated by what I was doing and I forgot about pain and my own problems and was deeply involved in my art."

Keith’s technique involves placing a rugby gum shield on the bottom of his teeth and then using a long bent arrow head shaft as the brush. Painting two feet away from the canvas he compares his technique to that of an orchestra conductor. In terms of subject matter he veers primarily towards light, atmosphere, and life.

Keith with wife Cindy

Keith’s perseverance over the years has resulted in some amazing achievements including being accepted as a student in the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists Organisation in 1998 and he was subsequently promoted to full membership in 2000. Since then Keith has sold a number of reproductions worldwide and his paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world.