Lénaïc LEGER

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• Picture Details
• Short Biography
• Artist Video

Short Biography

Lénaïc was born in Blois on 2nd November 1973. She came into the world with agenesis of the arms and a malformation of the legs. She spent her youth and childhood at the Institut National de Réadaptation of St. Maurice, in Denise-Legrix-Haus, which was founded in 1962 due to the deformities caused by the drug Thalidomide. The happiest moments in her childhood were the visits to her parents and grandparents in the school holidays and at weekends. Already as a very young girl, Lénaïc felt the need to draw. It came completely naturally to her to use her foot to hold a brush or a pencil. “From earliest childhood, my foot has been like a hand for me,” she says. On 29th May 1985, Lénaïc received the prize for the best drawing in a big drawing competition for children in hospitals, which was organized by the children’s aid organisation “Association Mondiale Des Amis de l’Enfance” (AMADE France). Thus, drawing and painting became a means of expression with which she was able to share her joy, her troubles and her hopes. They represented her future profession.
Lénaïc found her way to the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World through Denise Legrix. Membership made her part of a group of artists who support one another and share their experiences. Lénaïc maintains particularly close contact with Nathalie Dorchat, her childhood friend, who has the same disability. In 1993, Lénaïc returned to her home district of Loir-et-Cher, to once more attend lessons with a well-known professional artist. Then, after so many years spent in institutions, real life began for her. Lénaïc and her boyfriend had already been sharing a flat in Vendôme for several years, before they got married in Salbris (Loir-et-Cher) on 25th July 1998. Lénaïc cherishes that day as her most beautiful memory.  For her work, Lénaïc was awarded the Medal of the French National Assembly by officials of the district of Loir-et-Cher at the beginning of June 2000. Lénaïc devotes herself to painting for about four hours a day. She prefers oil painting, dry pastels, watercolours and gouache. Her favourite motifs are seascapes, landscapes and floral compositions, and also animal portraits. Lénaïc is also an enthusiastic visitor of other painters’ exhibitions, traveller and photographer. She loves swimming, likes going to the cinema and is interested in new technology. She also collects sugar papers and the so-called “fèves”, the figures from the Three Kings’ cake. Lénaïc particularly wants to thank her family for the strength she gained from their support, the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World and, especially, Denise Legrix and all those who believed in her and in her talent.