Meet the Bristol artist painting with an unusual part of her body

When Vanessa Haarhoff was involved in a car accident at the age of 18, her world suddenly looked very different.

She had been fiercely athletic and was undertaking a bachelor of science degree in human movement sciences in South Africa.

The teenager had suffered a severe spinal injury and became tetraplegic, paralysed from the shoulders down.

Vanessa struggled to come to terms with her injury until an occupational therapist introduced her to an art class in the physical rehabilitation centre she had been attending. It was here Vanessa first discovered the art of painting with the mouth.

Back then, art was the last thing she was interested in, Vanessa told Bristol24/7 from her studio in Henleaze. She didn’t want to join at first but begrudgingly gave it a try. “I was very bored and had pent up energy so thought I would give it a go,” she said.

Vanessa has turned her passion into a part-time career in Bristol after joining the British association of Mouth & Foot Painting Artists – photo: MFPA

Lucky for Vanessa, her art teacher saw potential in her work and she began painting watercolours of animals, landscapes and birds.

Vanessa went back to Zimbabwe – her home country – after her rehabilitation where she trained to be a journalist at Rhodes University before living and working in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia.

Fast forward 24 years, Vanessa has turned her passion into a part-time career in Bristol after joining the British association of Mouth & Foot Painting Artists (MFPA) as one of 28 accredited mouth painters in the UK.

The mouth and foot painting artist community has allowed her to teach, visit schools for painting demonstrations and even visiting a rural school in Scotland.

“I’ve met some really amazing people,” said Vanessa about the opportunities she’s had with MFPA. “I’ve met some really amazing mouth painting artists.”

MFPA is a partnership of disabled artists run by the artists. Formed in 1975, the group has grown in size, providing artists with a platform and a fee to showcase their work while investing back into their community by producing occasion cards, calendars and other products.

“Discovering mouth painting was a real godsend for me,” says Vanessa. “You need to find something that you can do to be productive and creative because you can get down and depressed if you don’t have goals and things to look forward to.”

Vanessa is inspired by local flower and fauna – photo: MFPA

For Vanessa, her artistic talent may have remained untapped forever if her therapist hadn’t given her the opportunity to discover her creative side.

“We are all artistic, but some of us never really get an opportunity,” she said. Despite Vanessa’s growing confidence with mouth painting, it’s not an easy skill to master.

The mouth is much less stable than hands, and gaining control and balance over the paintbrush takes years of practice, she explained. Vanessa hopes to start painting faces in the future, an even more difficult feat.

As far as she is aware, Vanessa is the only mouth painter in Bristol. She’s not yet exhibited her work here and hopes to collaborate on a show with other Bristol artists. Her favourites are the artist Abigail McDougall and disabled photographer David Constantine.

Vanessa shows no sign of slowing down and, from her home in Henleaze, has found plenty of flowers and fauna to inspire her work.

To see more of Vanessa’s work, visit her Instagram @mouthpainting_artist or visit her Facebook page, Vanessa Haarhoff Art, where Vanessa sells original works.

Main photo: Vanessa Harhoff

Read next:

• Bricks announce open call for major public artwork for Temple Quarter’s Welcome building
• A warm welcome to Cotham Hill painted by Inkie
• More than 1,000 artists stop working with Arnolfini following Palestinian censorship

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: