Paralysed Aylesbury Vale foot and mouth artist celebrates his peers ahead of Christmas showcase

An Aylesbury Vale based foot and mouth painter has celebrated his fellow artists ahead of a busy period for disabled creators.

Keith Jansz was keen to promote the work of fellow foot and mouth painters ahead of Christmas, where many artists work is transferred onto Christmas cards.

He is one of over 800 people included in the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists, a partnership of disabled artists from across the globe who work together to showcase their artwork.

Keith said: “[Christmas] is the largest part of what we do, we create throughout the year, various paintings and motifs, that are then presented and reproduced on Christmas cards.

"We are really pleased to have such good support from a lot of people who value what we do and the time we take to create them in a slightly different way.

"The artists, some of which through illness or accident, or birth defect, can paint by foot like Christy Brown, who had the famous My Left Foot film with Daniel Day Lewis made about him, was one of our artists in the early years.”

You can shop Christmas cards and products designed by the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists online.

Keith from Buckingham, discovered mouth painting two years after he was involved in a life-changing car crash in 1996. He was inspired to try it out after reading ‘Painters First’, a collection of biographies of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.

By 1998 he was accepted into the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists group. He has not looked back since, curating a number of art exhibitions showcasing his work.

Keith also acts as a mentor to other people living with limiting injuries, he recently held a talk in Horatio’s Garden at the National Spinal Injuries Centre in Stoke Mandeville, where he spoke with newly injured patients.

He added: “The MFPA has been a stepping stone to a new career, direction, focus. It’s been a salvation. And it is for our artists around the world.

"People who perhaps, weren’t artistic in school, or given the opportunity by teachers, discover this and it keeps them going.

"It gives them opportunities to branch out into many different areas of society as well and to be working, and gain self-esteem, self-respect.”