Art brings colour to life of brave Hong Kong battler
Visually impaired Lee Oi-yee, 80, also remains active by helping others and teaching crafts to terminally ill elderly people
Sky-blue strokes, slathered on fat and dense, serve a strong contrast to the black-inked lotuses in the foreground of the painting.
The abstract form of the flowers, balanced by a delicate crane perched by their side, shows the hand’s freedom in expressing what the heart feels, not what the brain sees.
The hand belongs to Lee Oi-yee, 80, who has in fact only 20 per cent vision left in one eye. She had her first solo exhibition hosted by i-dArt Space in Kennedy Town earlier this year.
Lee started taking painting classes a few years ago, at the care home where she resides.
“I have so much to learn, but I understand better now where things would look nice” – in truth, she’s nailed the concept of composition. “I still have no idea how colours mix into other colours though.”
Actually, her eyes can’t really tell colours apart. “I picture it in my head and I tell my teacher, who mixes it for me.”
Lee moved into the care home, specially designed for those with impaired vision, nearly a decade ago. It was a miserable time; she’d lost most of her sight from glaucoma, failed surgery for the disease and then a brain tumour. But staff at the care home encouraged her to remain active.
Thanks to the easily seen colourful crockery used at the home, Lee began helping to set and clear tables before and after meals. Upon seeing old folks struggling to eat, she started helping to feed them. “I just eat 10 minutes later; the others always save me food,” she says.
She set about volunteering more and taking classes under the TWGHs Lok Chun Continuous Education programme. She has picked up calligraphy, Saori weaving, world history, and teaches crafts to terminally ill senior citizens at Grantham Hospital.
“The more I do, the more excited I get!” she says. “It’s a great distraction from the pains all over my body.”
Lee has survived many ailments, including colon cancer and broken bones, which have battered her physically. Yet mental strength allows her big sassy smile to continue shining.
It’s no surprise how strong she is inside out, given the hardships she has lived through.
As a child in Macau, she was forced to kneel on sand during the Cultural Revolution. “They spared me the glass shards because I was young.” She escaped by stealing onto a boat to Hong Kong by herself when she was nine, and slept under stairwells in Sham Shui Po.
She later found work in a textiles factory, and slept on a grave up the hill behind it. She married at 16 to a wealthy man whose family spurned her humble background. When he died, she did several jobs, sometimes harrowing ones, to bring up five children.
Tung Wah’s Jockey Club Yee Yeung Care and Attention Home has nominated Lee for an overcoming Personal Challenge Award in the Post’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards.
Having endured so much, Lee is upset that the life of the workforce today isn’t better despite prosperity. “You work them for 10, 12 hours, how can they cook or spend time with their families?”
She doesn’t get to see her children and grandchildren nearly enough, but beams in appreciation that she has found a way to express through art all her experiences in life.
