Find your own path.
Born in 1979 in Ba Vi district, Hanoi , Le Vinh had a passion for painting from a young age. After graduating from high school, Le Vinh enrolled in the Central College of Music and Fine Arts Education (now the Central University of Arts Education). After graduation, he returned to his hometown to teach, hoping to inspire a passion for painting in studious rural children.
However, driven by a desire to improve his skills and create works of art according to his own preferences, in 2008 he decided to take the entrance exam and study at the Vietnam Fine Arts University. After graduating, he began pursuing his passion for painting, while simultaneously continuing his teaching career.
Artist Le Vinh (born in 1979)
Instead of maintaining and developing his skills in traditional painting styles like watercolor, oil paint, and lacquer painting like many other artists, Le Vinh decided to pursue ballpoint pen painting – a new medium that no other artist had tried. Le Vinh shared: "When I was in school, in my free time, I often sketched. I could draw anywhere; if I saw something I liked, I would take out a pen and paper and draw. Sometimes, if I forgot my pencil, I would use a ballpoint pen. Therefore, gradually, using ballpoint pens to draw fascinated me, and I suddenly realized that the ink color of ballpoint pens has something both familiar and intimate, yet incredibly captivating and attractive."
After graduating, with the desire to achieve certain success in the field of painting, I felt I needed to choose a different path from other artists to create my own unique style and appeal. Meanwhile, ballpoint pens were a novel medium, one that no one had yet pursued, so I decided to delve deeper into exploring and experimenting with this medium."
Drawing with a ballpoint pen requires precision and high concentration because ballpoint pens cannot be erased.
Because it was a new medium, and no training institution taught ballpoint pen painting, Le Vinh encountered many difficulties on his journey of creating art with this medium. "Ballpoint pen painting is not like pencil painting; it requires meticulousness and high concentration because ballpoint pens cannot be erased. If you make a mistake or get ink on your brush, you have to start over. The artist also can't stand on an easel because the ink won't flow down to the nib; they have to lean over a flat surface while painting..."
Furthermore, ballpoint pen colors are not as diverse as powder paints, mainly limited to red, blue, and black, thus restricting the range of shades. Therefore, when I first started painting, I mainly used blue ink. It wasn't until a former middle school student (who studied in Japan) saw how vibrant my paintings were that she bought over 1,000 ballpoint pens in various colors to give to me. That's when I began to explore and create my own techniques for drawing, color mixing, and shading to produce works with a full range of vibrant colors," Lê Vinh further shared.
Creating new art
The main subjects in his paintings are mostly young girls and children from the highlands wearing traditional ethnic costumes.
Regarding the unique aspects of painting with various materials, Le Vinh shared: "When painting with oil paints, the artist uses a free and unrestrained style, with strokes that can be large or small, and the painting process is very fast. However, using a ballpoint pen is different. Ballpoint pens have very small nibs, so covering an entire 1.5-meter painting with ink requires a lot of effort… However, that's also what makes ballpoint pen painting special. With a small nib, I can draw even the smallest details, create multiple strokes, and thus produce a more vibrant and deeper painting. Furthermore, after finishing, rubbing a white cotton swab on the surface of the painting causes the ink to leach out, creating a beautiful and captivating effect of varying shades."
To date, Le Vinh has created nearly 300 unique, colorful, and emotionally rich paintings. Each completed painting is the result of his hard work and love for his homeland; therefore, the main subjects in his paintings are mostly young women and children from the highlands wearing traditional ethnic costumes.
The artwork "The Joyful Garden" by artist Le Vinh
Le Vinh said: "Each ethnic group, such as the Hmong, Red Dao, Khau Dao, etc., has its own customs and traditions, and the designs and patterns of their costumes are also different. However, they all share the common trait of beautiful, vibrant, and innocent girls, like the mountains and forests. I want to express that beauty in my paintings. And through my works, I hope to contribute to promoting and conveying the unique cultural beauty of the Vietnamese people to friends around the world ."
However, to paint portraits of ethnic minority girls, I had to go on field trips and experience life in remote, mountainous villages such as Cao Bang , Son La, Lang Son, Ha Giang, Yen Bai, and Lao Cai. I had to go to the villages and visit their families to learn about their customs, traditions, and traditional clothing, as well as the distinctive patterns of each ethnic group, in order to understand them and be able to paint them. And the more I traveled, the more "space" I found for artistic creation, because there are images and moments that only a ballpoint pen can clearly capture to make them appealing to the viewer."
The artwork "Midday Dream" by artist Le Vinh
After more than 10 years of diligent and dedicated pursuit of artistic creation using ballpoint pens, Le Vinh has achieved considerable success in the art world. In particular, in 2020, when he participated in the National Fine Arts Exhibition, his paintings left a strong impression and were highly praised by art professionals. This helped spread this new art form to a wider audience, gaining favor and admiration from many art collectors who paid high prices for his work.
Thus, it can be seen that ballpoint pens, traditionally used only for writing, have now become a medium for painting. This demonstrates the continuous creativity of artists. However, in Vietnam today, there are not many professional artists who paint with ballpoint pens like Le Vinh; only a few young people paint as a trend, creating small-scale artworks for decoration or as gifts, which lack a high level of professionalism.
Therefore, Le Vinh hopes that ballpoint pen drawings will be increasingly accepted by the public and that ballpoint pens will become a common medium in painting. "As a teacher, to the best of my ability, I will try to spread my passion for ballpoint pen drawing to more young people," artist Le Vinh expressed.
Source: https://toquoc.vn/ve-tranh-bang-but-bi-sang-tao-nghe-thuat-moi-trong-hoi-hoa-20240520152811452.htm
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