Location: Israel
Netta was born on 28 October 1979, in Jerusalem, Israel. In her childhood, she was always keen on art and enjoyed making art crafts and working with different materials.
On 25 November 1994, at 15 years of age, her life has completely turned upside down. One Friday afternoon, like a thunder strike, she became paralyzed from her neck down within less than an hour due to a very rare syndrome named Transverse Myelitis - a neurological phenomenon with no known cure or cause.
During a long period in a rehabilitation hospital and after weaning off the ventilator to which she was connected for 18 months, she taught herself how to paint with her mouth. It is through much practice and hard work that she realized she could do anything; her body may be limited, but what she could do and achieve was limited only by her mind.
In 2003, she was accepted to the international Association of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (AMFPA), which turned her painting therapy and later hobby into a profession. The AMFPA, which has over 800 artists worldwide, supports disabled artists who cannot paint with their hands by selling reproductions and prints of their artworks on various products. Netta’s work has been recognized and published on the association’s products in countries like the US, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Finland and France.
In 2012, Netta has authored and illustrated her first children’s book, “Who is Wooly?”, which was published by the AMFPA and dedicated to her firstborn son, Itai. In 2017, the AMFPA published her second children’s book, “Sniffy the Shrew”, and in February 2021, her third book, “Secret Door” was out. All of her books have been selling widely in Israel.
In 2015, Netta has become an Associate Member of the AMFPA. Her work has been displayed in numerous group exhibitions in Israel and abroad. In early 2018, she held her first solo exhibition at the city hall of her hometown, Rishon Letziyyon, and ever since, she has conducted over twenty more solo shows.
Netta navigates her artistic career in parallel to being a mother of two and a wife, working in Israel’s high tech industry (she has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA in Information Systems) and being an inspirational speaker & promoter of awareness to people with disability. She is trying to expose as many people as possible to her work and to the AMFPA, and constantly participating in art exhibitions in Israel and abroad.
She sees her art as a medium that allows her tremendous freedom in being creative and conveying a message to the world, that regardless of her physical disability she is "high on life", full of hope and optimism and always trying to see the glass half full. She wants to inspire people to believe that almost everything is possible if you only put your heart and mind to it.
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