For most people, painting is not difficult, but for the painter with a disability Le Quang Linh, it is a miracle. What is more, Linh has won countless awards proving his talent.
Ask anyone about the painter Le Quang Linh (born 1985), who lives at 249 Tran Phu Street (Ha Tinh City), and they will know him. For the people around him, the image of a young man with thin, weak limbs and halting speech who paints every day has become a symbol of extraordinary resilience.
Le Quang Linh is the eldest of three siblings. When he was born, Linh developed like any other child. But fate was cruel: when he had just turned one, he suddenly fell ill, and his limbs contracted, making movement difficult.
His parents took Linh to hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with cerebral palsy. Although the family tried treatment in many places, he never fully recovered. Out of love for their eldest son, who had to live with a disability, Linh’s parents waited a long time before having more children, so they could spend time caring for him.
For Linh, painting is a joy and a reason to live.
Mrs Bien Thi Hong (Linh’s mother) said: “When he reached school age and saw his friends carrying their school bags, Linh also asked me to buy him books so he could go with them. Seeing my son’s unsteady legs and his mouth unable to form words, I was heartbroken. Many times I complained, what have we done to deserve heaven punishing my son like this?”.
“Out of love for my son, I let Linh go to school with his younger sister. Although he could not hold a pen firmly enough to write, Linh particularly loved drawing animals. I bought him a whole drawing set, and from then on Linh practised his first strokes at home”, Mrs Hong said.
His path into painting began there, but it was full of thorns and challenges. For most people, painting is not difficult, but for a person with a disability like Linh, it is extremely hard. As a result of his illness, Linh’s right hand is unusable, but with his contracted left hand, Linh still persisted in learning to hold a pen, gradually guiding it as he wished.
An introduction to Le Quang Linh in the membership list of the Ha Tinh Literature and Arts Association.
“At first, drawing was very hard, because my limbs were contracted. It hurt a lot. I could only use three fingers of my left hand to hold the pen and scribble on the paper. Many times I wanted to give up, but my family encouraged me and took me to see some painting classes, and I found it fascinating. After that, I asked my mother to let me study at the cultural centre and I kept on drawing. After a while, I gradually got used to it”, Linh said, recalling his arduous journey into painting.
Indeed, just learning to hold the pen without shaking took Linh a whole year, and even simple strokes took him months of struggle. Only with extraordinary resilience and relentless effort did his first work, a pencil sketch, come into being, to the joy of his family and the amazement of his tutor.
With just that first painting, his teachers recognised Linh’s talent for painting and encouraged him to keep practising. From then on, Linh confidently kept creating new paintings. There were nights when he stayed up all night to paint, sometimes painting for 6–7 hours at a stretch, leaving his family alarmed and forcing him to rest for fear he would exhaust himself.
Linh paints on paper and fabric, but mostly on fabric. Later, he tried oil and acrylic painting. More uniquely, in 2013, he created a new way of painting, weaving rattan and bamboo himself and then laying fabric over it to paint on.
One of Linh’s paintings about folk games.
In particular, he loves painting about childhood, because, in his view, children are innocent, naive and pure. So Linh’s paintings give people a feeling of joy, freshness and bustle, with bright colours that dispel all worries.
But sometimes he also challenges himself with images of light and darkness, creating harsh colour blocks, bold compositions and vivid images. “I want viewers, after looking at my painting, to think, to see themselves in it, to feel themselves always struggling, always lost in life. From that, it opens up their thinking, so they see that this life is worth living and that they must always strive to rise up and live”, Linh shared.
When asked which painting Linh was most satisfied with, he said that every painting he produced was the result of diligent work and held his own innermost thoughts, but no painting had yet made Linh truly feel it was the most beautiful. He still paints tirelessly, always exploring and creating a perfect painting.
To this day, his painting “Bird nesting season” that he sent to the “Alaxan – Victory over pain” competition in December 2006 remains the painting he mentions most. Partly, it was the painting that won him his first First Prize in his painting career, but more importantly, in that painting he conveyed the dreams of children affected by Agent Orange. They gather together, share and encourage each other to overcome life’s difficulties together.
The sunny smile of the young painter with a disability who has risen above his fate.
Before we said goodbye, we asked: “Has Linh ever wanted to get married to share life’s difficulties?”. The painter sat smiling and shook his head. He may be a person with a disability, and his way of expressing himself may be hard for people to understand, but he still knows that love is the nurturing between two people.
“I don’t want any girl to have to tie her life to someone like me. Right now I still want to create freely, to keep learning so I can create more beautiful paintings, so I haven’t thought about starting a family yet”, Linh said.
Some achievements of the painter Le Quang Linh
First Prize in the painting competition “Alaxan – Victory over pain” in 2006.
Special Prize in the painting and photography competition on people with disabilities organised by the Association for the Development of People with Disabilities of Quang Binh Province (AEPD) in 2011.
Certificate of merit from the Chairman of the People’s Committee of Ha Tinh Province for outstanding achievements in the movement “People with disabilities and orphans overcoming difficulties” in the 2005–2010 period.
In 2001, he took part in the Asian children’s art competition “Picture diary” ENIKKI.
In 2003, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2013, he took part in the regional art exhibition of Region IV, North Central Vietnam, with the works “A corner of the town”, “Festival”, “Joyful harvest season”, “Praying for a harvest” and “Summer sunshine”.
In 2012 and 2013, he took part in group art exhibitions on the themes “Aspiration” and “A new day” in the “Developing cultural space” programme and the “Huong River love” programme in Hue City.
Anh Ngoc_ http://www.nguoiduatin.vn/