Teenager with Down syndrome wows the art world

Nonverbal since birth, Sevy has found her voice and wowed people around the globe with her talent.

As a desperate attempt to bond with her adopted daughter from Bulgaria, Lisa Eicher brought out some paints one evening. What happened next blew her away:

“Every line, every mark was intentional and thought-out, and it hit me: She’s an artist! She knows what she’s doing, and she’s really trying to tell me something here.”

So Lisa and her husband Joey surrounded Sevy, whom they adopted only a few years earlier when she was 12, with more art supplies. Now, at age 16, she’s a sought-after artist – a far cry from her life’s desperate beginnings of being bounced around from institution to institution.

Sevy’s work went public when Lisa posted a few of her paintings on Instagram. “People went nuts!” she said in a Youtube video, “Actual professional artists were saying that it looked like the work of somebody who has a master’s degree in fine art.”

Shortly after Lisa began sharing Sevy’s work, an online demand for her paintings resulted in an 8 minute sell-out of all her work – and a website crash. Fortunately, the Eichers (along with their three other children) have made Sevy’s art a family affair. Together, they work as a team, her little brother naming each piece and the rest of her family packaging and shipping Sevy Marie Eicher masterpieces all around the world.

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