VLAARDINGEN, Netherlands – With a look of fierce concentration on her face, Dutch artist Rajacenna van Dam is crafting 10 paintings at the same time. She is wielding four paintbrushes simultaneously – one in each hand, and one held by 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 the curly-haired Ms Rajacenna – her artist name – who wanted a challenge to relieve her boredom, but it has since become a profession that has shot her to viral 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’m 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 go quicker. I discovered I was ambidextrous,” the 31-year-old artist told AFP.
Then a journalist asked her as a joke whether she could also use her feet as well. Challenge accepted.
Starting out “for fun” and after a few mishaps with sticky tape between her toes, she tried using plasticine to keep the brush between her toes.
It was a success and she posted a video of her exploits online, quickly becoming a viral hit. Orders flooded in.
She is so skilled 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. It’s a bit less precise,” she said, showing off her skills at a museum in Vlaardingen, her home town in the south of the Netherlands.
