Markus Kostka

Markus Kostka was born on 1st June 1967 in Wiesbaden. In 1983, at the age of sixteen, he suffered a serious swimming accident in Italy and thereby became tetraplegic. While he was still staying at the clinic, he discovered his ability to paint with his mouth. The renowned watercolour painter Sybille Salzeder recognized his talent and instructed him in watercolour techniques for two years. Following his accident, the mouth painter nonetheless graduated from secondary school with his school-leaving diploma.

He subsequently studied Psychology at the University of Regensburg, graduating in 1998. For many years, Markus worked at the University of Regensburg as a basic researcher in the area of traffic safety, specialising in “Human-Machine Interaction”. Markus loves painting animal portraits of all kinds; as he once said himself, “It is precisely in animals that I find that mixture of motivation, feeling and joy which lends my portraits expression.” Markus Kostka has already been able to successfully present his works at numerous exhibitions.