153 QUADRIDEXTROUS ART

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QUADRIDEXTROUS DUTCH ARTIST PAINTS 10 PICTURES AT ONCE

With a look of intense concentration on her face, Dutch artist Rajacenna van Dam paints on 10 canvases at the same time. She uses four paintbrushes simultaneously – one in each hand, and one held with the toes of each foot.

Paintings of an astronaut, a self-portrait, and eight other pictures come to life as she paints on canvases laid out on a table, upside-down on the floor, and on two easels.

It started as a party trick for Ms Rajacenna – her professional name – who wanted a challenge to relieve her boredom, but it has since become a specialty that has given her Internet fame.

She works out every paint stroke in advance in her head before she sets to work with her hands and feet.

“I work a bit on one canvas, then move to another one, so I am always dividing my attention between them,” said Ms Rajacenna, who is, technically, left-handed.

“Five years ago, I started painting with both hands, as a bit of a challenge and to finish more quickly. I discovered I was ambidextrous,” the 31-year-old artist said.

Then, a journalist asked her, as a joke, whether she could also use her feet. She accepted the challenge.

After some unsuccessful attempts using sticky tape to hold the brushes between her toes, she finally tried plasticine to keep the brushes in place.

It was a success, and she posted a video of her skills online. Orders flooded in.

She is so skilled now that only she can tell the difference between paintings crafted with her hands and those with her feet.

“I can really see a big difference. Foot paintings are a bit less precise,” she said, showing off her skills at a museum in her hometown in the south of the Netherlands.

Ms Rajacenna has loved drawing since she was a small child.

Today, her videos on social media attract millions of views, especially when she paints 10 canvases at a time with her hands and feet.

“I get bored quite quickly, so I like to challenge myself. Doing all this at the same time gives me a sort of feeling of meditation, which calms me a lot,” she says.

To her knowledge, she is the only person capable of such a hands-and-feet feat.

“But I hope that people will be inspired to do more things, to challenge themselves a bit more, to do things like paint with their feet,” she said.

Her paintings sell for between €6,000 (USD$6,500) and €12,000 (USD$13,000), according to her father, Jaco van Dam.

“It is also very special for us as parents. She surprises us too, and I do not know, either, how she manages to do it,” he says.

A study on her brain by Turkish-German scientist Onur Gunturkun provided a clue.

“A brain scan showed that the left and right sides of her brain are three times more connected than average,” says Dr. Gunturkun.

He adds that Ms Rajacenna is “capable of things that neuroscience considers impossible.”

Ms Rajacenna has attracted some famous admirers, such as pop star Justin Bieber, who described her work as “amazing” when she presented him with a portrait of himself. It certainly impressed a retired couple watching her at the museum, too.

“It is extraordinary that someone can do that,” said retiree Anton van Weelden.

“What is more, the paintings are very beautiful and realistic,” he said, adding that he would never dare to try something like that. “

I could not even paint like that with my right hand.”

Just for fun, some other journalist should suggest that Ms Rajacenna hold a brush in her teeth to see if she can up her production to 11 paintings at once. She likes challenges.

Ambidexterous Artist Rajacenna von Dam Can Draw With Both Hands and Feet