The keeper of Vietnamese soul in Tra land

There, the young man Pham Van Tuan was sitting quietly, all his concentration was focused on his hand holding a strange pen, with a red-hot iron nib, slowly gliding across the wooden surface.

Pham Van Tuan and some works drawn with fire pen.

There was no sound of rubbing charcoal, no rustling of the brush. There was only a soft “sizzling” sound, almost a whisper, as the flame from the tip of the brush “ate” into each grain of wood, leaving behind a dark brown burn. I watched each wisp of fragrant smoke rise and dissipate into the air. Under that skillful hand, the five words “A peaceful heart, peace of mind” gradually appeared, the lines as soft as silk calligraphy, but carrying the weight and depth of fire and wood.

He stopped, raised his head slightly, his eyes lit up with satisfaction, then took a deep breath, a true act of an artist "breathing" with his work.

Looking at the young man with a scholarly figure, his hands used to holding scissors and clippers in noisy hair salons, few people would have expected that he could find himself in this tranquility. What made him leave a stable job to embark on a selective artistic path, using fire to tell cultural stories in this land of Thai Nguyen ?

Born in 1994 in the Port City, Tuan, like many other young men, graduated from high school and then sought a career path. He chose hairdressing, went to the South to study and then opened a small salon in Buon Ma Thuot City. Life in the highland town just went on, amidst the clacking of scissors and the gossip of customers, until the day he visited a friend's house.

The flame of passion for art, which had been smoldering somewhere since childhood, suddenly flared up fiercely. Tuan borrowed tools and began to explore on his own during the salon's quiet hours.

The first work, a calligraphy "Parents" "written" with fire, was still clumsy, the strokes were still shaky, but contained all the excitement of the beginning.

He hung it in the shop, not to sell, but to admire. Then a neighbor saw it and begged him to give it back. “When I received the money, I was not happy because I sold the painting, but because someone sympathized with what I made. That small moment ignited a strong belief in me.”

Faith is the beginning, but the path of self-study has never been paved with roses. Fire pen painting is an art of perseverance to the point of harshness. On a wooden background, every wrong stroke is very difficult to correct. The artist must master the heat of the pen, must make the fire obey his will.

“After finishing a complicated painting, sometimes my whole hand is red and blistered from the heat,” Tuan shared, his voice low.

He still remembers the feeling of helplessness and wanting to cry when a work of his heart, a portrait that he had spent a whole week working on, suddenly cracked because of the sudden change in weather. “All my efforts went up in smoke. At that time, I just wanted to throw it all away. But then I looked back at the completed paintings, looked back at the reason I started, I found another piece of wood and started over.”

A painting drawn with fire pen art by Pham Van Tuan.

But the difficulty of technique is not as scary as the difficulty of “breathing life into the soul”. During the day, Tuan is the owner of a hair salon. At night, he is a diligent student, self-studying calligraphy to have a spirited brushstroke, self-studying oil painting to feel the color and composition. There are nights when he paints continuously until dawn, so tired that his hands shake and he can’t hold the brush. He believes that fire tests gold, hardship tests strength. Painting is not only a passion, but also a way to train himself.

“This art teaches me patience,” Tuan said. “Patience in the heat, perseverance with small details, and calmness in the face of failure. It forces me to slow down, to listen to myself, to listen to the wood grain, to the fire. All of that comes from long days sitting in front of a piece of wood, holding a red-hot pen in my hand, drawing each stroke.”

In 2021, at the Chrysanthemum Festival at Ba Vang Pagoda, among the crowd of festival-goers, fate arranged for Tuan to meet a girl from Thai Nguyen. Love blossomed as simply as they were. A year later, they got married and Tuan decided to leave everything behind to follow his wife to the hometown of "The First Famous Tea" to start a business.

“Thai Nguyen is a fate for me” - Tuan smiled, a gentle smile. “I not only followed my wife here, but it seems like this land also chose me”.

His wife, Dang Thi Ngoc Anh, is the one who understands and supports her husband's artistic path more than anyone else. Dang Thi Ngoc Anh shared: "At first, I just thought he was skillful. But the more I watched him work, the more I felt a passionate soul with an admirable perseverance. I not only love him as a person, I also love the way he is passionate about the culture of his homeland."

And Thai Nguyen gave Tuan inspirations that he had never had before. No longer general topics, Tuan's art began to carry the breath of the land of tea. He could sit for hours to admire the lush green of Tan Cuong tea hills in the morning mist, and then come back to recreate it on rustic walls.

One afternoon in late June at Moc Store (Phan Dinh Phung Ward, Thai Nguyen), I sat next to Tuan while he was using a brush to paint on the brim of a conical hat. The scene was magical: The fragile white hat and each brush stroke gradually created white camellia flowers with lush green leaves. The brush glided lightly, the color spread evenly.

Tuan's eyes were serious, his hands steady, his soul seemed to blend into each line of color. I felt: He was not just painting, he was weaving a story about his homeland, turning the simple conical hat into a small messenger, carrying the soul of Thai Nguyen tea everywhere.

Inside his small room, Tuan devoted most of the space to displaying his works. It was not a flashy gallery, but a private world where his soul was fully exposed. I was particularly interested in the portrait of Uncle Ho with a baby drawn with a fire pen. Each light and dark burn created an astonishing depth for Uncle Ho's tolerant gaze. Nearby was a picture of Uncle Ho sitting reading a newspaper in the war zone, quiet and thoughtful, evoking a heroic period of history.

“For me, painting about Uncle Ho and the history of the nation is not only a passion for painting, but also a way to arouse patriotism and pride in myself and in each viewer,” Tuan confided.

Without a formal training background or a major exhibition, Pham Van Tuan is a simple artist who chooses to live and communicate through his writing. He does not consider himself an artist, but humbly says: “I love Vietnamese culture and I am trying to find ways to preserve it in my own way.”

From a hairdresser, Pham Van Tuan has become a storyteller with fire and brushstrokes, born from a burning passion, nurtured by perseverance and sublimated by a deep love for his homeland. With wood, fire, color, and all his heart, he connects the past and the present, gradually affirming his reputation through each mural, each calligraphy, wall painting, fire pen painting for the table...

If you ever sit back and watch Tuan paint like I did, you will understand that: True art does not need a splendid stage, it only needs a sincere heart. And in that small balcony, Pham Van Tuan's passion is still burning, persistent and inspiring.