A young painter native from Hanoi now has his work on display in Ho Chi Minh City’s Galerie Vinh Loi. This homecoming artist, who started his artistic studies in HCMC Fine Arts Schools, is representative of a new generation of young painters- full of an unstoppable. Creative energy.
Le Quang Ha, 32 year-old painter, has a already lived a substantial life in the arts. After completing his aesthetical studies in HCMC, he continued his work in his home town. At that time, he already had a solo exhibition in a Dong Khoi gallery. Since 1988, his works have been exhibited each year in Vietnam and abroad, including exhibitions in Berlin and Beijing.
His works are keenly sought after by collectors, who enjoy tracing his creative evolution. Painters and critics alike have tried to analyze his direct style, whose unabashed simplicity immediately attracts the eye. Ha belong to the new wave of young painters who, in a euphoria of expression, are now creating Contemporary Vietnamese Fine Art. And observers, with surprise and interest, will realize that this new school of painting is destined to become one of the most distinguished in Asia.
But what is really going on in Ha’s work? What has this metonymical painter invited us to see in his works? How can we define the new artistic wave which seems to be summed up in the recent paintings of Le Quang Ha?
Whether in his gouache on paper or his oil on canvas (the two media most favoured by his artistic generation), Le Quang Ha works in complete liberty of style and conception. No convention can restrain him from painting what he wants to. His subject, composition and freedom of colour, superficially simple, are not so in reality. We must recall that this style has been elaborated from a tableau rasa, without any pattern, following only the painter’s internal inspiration and striving for expression.
Composition is always carefully rendered in Le Quang Ha’s work. His angular stroke draws up-close spaces in scenography reminiscent of the theatre. Guidelines invite the eye to move over the work- especially the angular, coloured background, which stands out sharply from the peopled foreground.
The coloured space creates clear, tonal context, which echos with a feeling, life- rich atmosphere. We can notice his palette’s magnificence of colours, his subtle blue or red variations. Some of his works are virtually magical with their mysterious graduations. One can also notice that Le Quang Ha seems to be as comfortable in his oil on canvas as in his paper work- that is not so evident for many of the young painters of his generation, who are better in their paper works.
Together, these colours and compositions create a very poetical fantasy, where the essence is related with maturity and precision. The subjects from which Le Quang Ha draws his inspiration come from the artist’s everyday life: women, flowers, children….All of them are taken unawares in a contemplative immobility, a sweet melancholy.
CYRIL LAPOINTE
There are often one or two figures in the painting, Le Quang Ha expresses his figures with a sculptor’s view. Painting is divided into three levels: the front space-generally is smooth and dark, grass and trees-soft and human figures- thin. Sometimes these three levels overlap and sometimes they are separate from each other. This enhances one thing by belittling another. There are many sexual motifs originating from flowers and trees; and there are many emotional levels, just as when we are touching someone.
Le Quang Ha pays attention most to the combination of those breakages, evoking the figure’s appearance from the darkness. In these spaces he continuously and intentionally inserts disorderly strokes.
The painting really achieve the painter’s idea. The longer we look at them, the more secrets we discover.
PHAN CAM THUONG
Le Quang Ha’s world is a mystery of romantics and poetry. Each works of this painter give us a lot of emotions. Every figure in the painting has their character, their own soul. The paintings of playing children, lion dance all remind us of childhood.
He has a sensitive colour feeling. The colour make a combination in his painting, flexible and lively. The red, blue, yellow, black colour mix together to give us a way of penetration a world of harmony and mystery.
Le Quang Ha’s painting has a space-structured view, with some stable, lively and instant figures. Through the world that were painted by him, we can find the passion and talent of an unique artist.
PHAM ANH DUNG