Dhiraj Sathvilkar was born on 17 December 1993 without both upper limbs and a right lower limb. Born in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, Dhiraj started painting with his foot at the age of five. After finishing his intermediate education, he went on to graduate in law.Â
Jagwinder Singh was born on 3 April 1991 in Punjab, without both his arms. He and his family had to struggle to get him admitted to a school. Questions about his inability to use hands became the motivation for him to use his feet for writing and other works. He was interested in drawing from his childhood, mostly influenced by his father who is a needleworker. Watching his father do embroidery was his first creative insight. After finishing his school he did a two-year diploma in art and craft.
MaÅ‚gorzata Waszkiewicz was born on 3 July 1973 in Poland. Born disabled, Cerebral Palsy left quite visible traces, namely total paresis of the upper limbs and slurred speech. In this situation, she was left to use her feet since childhood. She graduated from elementary school, and in 1998, at the instigation of a colleague, she began her adventure with painting. Thus joining VDMFK in 1999.Â
Meelis Luks was born as a completely healthy baby back in Soviet Estonia on 20 February 1968. However, for him, rhesus conflict was discovered a day later and by the time he received the blood transfusion the damage to the brain was already unrecoverable. Hence, he is not able to talk nor walk; lacking fine motor skills. He started to draw at an early age with a large felt marker. As a child, he tried to use his arms and fingers like everybody else until he saw a show about a person using her feet instead of her hands.Â
Sarah Talbi was born in Brussels on September 23, 1982. She came into the world without both her arms. Irrespective of the fact, She considers her difference a strength as it allowed her to create a world of possibilities: to start with, by making full use of her feet like hands, thanks to which she can write, drink, eat, study, work, draw … Simply live like everyone, independent. Sarah is a very adventurous person by nature. By travelling to places out of her comfort zone in her homeland and exploring the job market, she pursues everything that gives her a different task to challenge. Later when Sarah discovered her passion for drawing, she was thrilled. Her self-taught naïveté explores and discovers forms, perspective, shadows and colours. For professional pursuit, she took classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in St-Josse, and the monthly courses of Pierre Sentjens. Sarah joined VDMFK as a Scholarship Member in 2016.
Shu-I Yang was born on 6 July 1979 in Kwan Shi City. As her mother had to perform very hard physical work during her pregnancy, Shu-I Yang fell ill with hyperbilirubinemia one day after her birth. Because the attending doctor did not give her the necessary blood transfusion to treat the condition, she developed cerebral paralysis of the upper limbs. The deformation of her hands and feet impaired her movements. As a consequence, she is confined to the wheelchair and depends on her mother’s daily care. From childhood on, she had an interest in nature and developed a passion for painting.
En-Tien Yang was born on 5 March 1974 in Kang Shan. In October 1974, i.e. six months after her birth, she was abandoned on a market. A social worker heard her crying and, much to the surprise and astonishment of the woman, the baby had no arms and one of her legs was shorter than the other. En-Tien was taken to a police station. Countless orphanages were contacted, but none of them was willing to take the child. Finally, the little girl was adopted by a priest. Later, the different length of her legs caused her to develop scoliosis. When she was recovering, she started searching for something to do with her life. As she was interested in art, her foster father tried to find a teacher for her. From 1990 onwards, she has been supported as a Scholarship Holder by AMFPA.Â
Jui Chin Liao was born in Taipei on 27 September 1975. When he was three, he fell ill with meningitis. He then lived in an orphanage till the age of fifteen. Over his school years, he was taught how to use his foot for writing, painting and drawing. In 1994 he became a Scholarship Holder of the association. Since 2011, he has been an Associate Member of AMFPA. The artist’s favourite themes include landscapes and flowers for which he uses oil painting. His artistic achievements did not go unnoticed and the artist has been able to present a number of his works at numerous group exhibitions. Besides painting, his hobbies include swimming, playing chess and different ball games.
Born on 2 November 1973 in Blois, Lénaïc Leger has no arms, the right foot is joined to the thigh and the left foot is not fully developed, from birth. She started painting even before her school life. She taught herself the techniques of painting. In February 1987, she started taking painting lessons. She became a Student Member of VDMFK in 1988 and an Associate Member in 2009. Lénaïc uses different media but predominantly oil and watercolour. The artists’ preferred themes are flowers, but she also does landscapes and animals. The theme of the coastal landscape of Normandy created as highly expressive rocky landscapes in combination with lighthouse, cloud formation and flower fields, is her speciality. These paintings clearly show her fondness for details.
Sadikin Pard was born with no arms in Malang (Indonesia) on 29 October 1966. He attended primary and secondary school before completing his studies in psychology at the University of Muhammadiyah in Malang. In addition, he is extremely adept at working with computers. Due to his disability, Sadikin began using his feet to carry out everyday activities very early in life. In time, he also began to use them for drawing and painting. This led to the Association granting him a scholarship from 1989 onwards. In 2013 he became an Associate Member of the VDMFK.
