Painter Le Thanh Ha - 'crazy guy' preserves traditional quintessence through paintings
(Baonghean.vn) - It is not wrong to say that he has the character of a crazy scholar from Nghe An, when he always finds a new direction for himself despite facing many difficulties and hardships. He is painter Le Thanh Ha, born in Vinh City, now residing in Da Nang City, who tirelessly creates paintings on periwinkle paper.
Miniaturizing the world through children's drawings
Le Thanh Ha said that the fate that brought him to painting probably originated from the sensitive soul and imagination of a child who had followed his mother since childhood. His mother was a very good obstetrician and pediatrician since the 80s of the last century. Her special profession often required her to work at night, and her work was also extremely busy. However, her young son was too skinny and weak, so she had to "carry him under her arm" to take care of him. So every time he followed his mother, little Le Thanh Ha had the opportunity to admire the scenery and observe people. Even though he was only playing alone, to him, that vast sky was an extremely interesting world.
The innate ability to draw in Ha was inspired from the age of 9 or 10. At that time, he already knew how to shrink his space through scribbles on the wall and in the yard. Ha drew trees and leaves, drew the sun shining down on all things, drew his mother's pensive face when she held the stethoscope on the patient's chest. Ha silently played with pencils and chalk. To Ha, the world was beautiful in paintings. However, at first, those childish interests were not recognized and paid attention to by the whole family.
The most impressive thing for the young Ha at that time was the images of his beloved hometown in Thanh Dong, Thanh Chuong. “I still remember every time I returned to my hometown, the pungent scent of dry straw emanating from my grandparents’ kitchen always lingered. I also remember the doorstep that my grandfather used to take me past, and the star fruit tree that my grandparents used to pick for me to eat. I miss my grandparents’ figures and their love so much” - Thanh Ha expressed. It was those deep memories that made his later paintings of his hometown or portraits of women and the elderly so vivid and soulful.
The older Thanh Ha grew, the more he realized that his life belonged to painting. So he chose the path with a paintbrush and paints to follow, despite many difficulties. In the early years of his career, with his nature of wanting to explore and experience new things, he experimented with many forms, opening up many paths, but for some reason he was still not satisfied with what he had achieved.
After graduating from Hue University of Arts, artist Le Thanh Ha traveled to many places across the country to learn about traditional crafts. He chose Quang Nam and Da Nang as the destination for his creative career. In 2015, Le Thanh Ha and a partner opened the Vietnamese Paper Garden in Hoi An to create paintings from water coconuts.
“I opened a workshop making paper paintings from water coconut branches in Hoi An City because there is an abundant source of water coconut materials from the Bay Mau coconut forest. Regardless of my artistic journey, I always have a concern for preserving something traditional,” artist Le Thanh Ha confided.
"The crazy guy" in painting
“What an artist needs most is not drawing techniques but creativity, imagination and determination of one’s own direction” - Le Thanh Ha expressed his opinion. So, one time by chance, driving along the coastal road from Hoi An to Da Nang, seeing resorts cutting coconut branches before the storm season, he came up with the idea of making paper from coconut branches. He pulled over to the side of the road, picked up each coconut branch and thought. “From that day on, I started to try it. I tried it and it was successful. The coconut paper paintings were created entirely by hand, but it was really very elaborate” - Le Thanh Ha said.
Of course, to create unique and soulful paper molds, the artist must craft them very meticulously. The first stage is making the powder, the coconut branches will be processed into small pieces, the green shell covering the coconut branches along with the coconut leaves are used as fuel. Next, the small pieces of chopped coconut branches are boiled with lime for 24 hours and then put into a grinder to make powder. While waiting for the powder to soak, about 15 - 17 days, artist Le Thanh Ha will draw the patterns and motifs in the painting. After that, the decal is printed and cut again to create a complete painting mold. This stage usually takes 3 - 5 days, depending on the difficulty of the painting.
Once he has a painting frame, he puts the powder on the silk frame and uses water pressure to print the pattern. This printing technique requires the craftsman's skill to adjust the heavy or light level of water pressure to create the desired thick or thin layers on the paper surface. "This is the stage that determines whether the painting is beautiful or ugly, depending on the layers and the thickness of the fiber enough to let the light through" - Thanh Ha emphasized.
Each coconut paper painting with different themes appears under the shimmering light, making anyone who sees it admire and want to own it. People are even more amazed when they know the time it took to complete it, the patience and talented hands to create it. Le Thanh Ha said: “If it were easy and simple, how could it create unique things? Artists who want to bring unique art products to the community need to find their own path.”
What makes people admire Le Thanh Ha the most is that he does not stop at one type of paper that has been successfully exploited. For him, the material used to create drawings must always be renewed in every living space, every region. He went all the way to the northern highlands of the country to renew the paper of ethnic minorities in his own way. He traveled to Pa Co commune, Mai Chau district (Hoa Binh) to learn the traditional paper-making method of the Mong people. He also learned about the Japanese technique of printing Rakusui Washi patterns using water pressure.
Many people in the industry often talk about Le Thanh Ha with admiration, but many also think that he is a crazy artist, always looking for a thorny path, while his paintings have a solid market. Le Thanh Ha only said: "I take on the mission of preserving traditional values through paintings". Therefore, he always aches to find unique, new features through traditional Vietnamese themes, such as lotus flowers, sacred dragons... Each of his works when expressing traditional themes always evokes in the viewer a sense of intimacy, closeness but is unique and difficult to mix.
Le Thanh Ha's "craziness" is also shown in the fact that he opened a coconut paper painting workshop, but he volunteers to teach for free to anyone who wants to experience it. "Traditional beauty will not be lost if we know how to pass it on. There must be a way to pass on the quintessence of Vietnamese culture that our ancestors have preserved and summarized for thousands of years to be passed on forever" - Le Thanh Ha said.
