Kenzi Robi, from California, has loved to paint for as long as he can remember. As a small boy, his father would return home from his job at a paper factory with giant spools of paper that Kenzi and his five brothers and sisters would spend countless hours drawing and painting on.

As a young adult, Kenzi embarked on a career in art and enrolled at City College in San Francisco with a major in Graphic Design. In 1992, when he was only 19 years old, Kenzi was assaulted while at a party and was shot 3 times. One of the bullets struck Kenzi in the neck immediately rendering him quadriplegic.

Kenzi struggled to accept his new life as a quadriplegic, now totally dependent upon someone else to help him with every day to day task. However, one day (after many attempts to use complicated apparatus) Kenzi decided to grasp a paint brush between his teeth and began to paint. The creative ability he thought he had lost blossomed and his life no longer seemed so bleak.

Kenzi was accepted as a Student Member of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists in 2015.

Pictured above: “Pink Wallpaper” by Robi