Terminally ill boy, 5, stuns doctors by surviving... and holding his own art exhibition
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 1:50 PM on 2nd July 2010
A terminally ill boy who was not expected to live past six-months-old, has stunned doctors by surviving and holding his own art exhibition.
Leo Haines, aged five, was born with cerebral palsy and a terminal condition affecting his lungs and heart.
Doctors told his mother Marianna Haines, 26, that little Leo would die in his first year. But his fighting spirit saw him through and after spending his first brithday in hospital, Leo was able to move home.
Cerebral Palsy sufferer Leo Haines, 5, with mother Marianna with some of his artworks. He was not expected to reach his first birthday
The talented young artist, from Taunton Somerset, began painting alongside his grandmother Marianna Thomas, who quickly recognised his talent.
Leo now has 40 unique works, reminiscent of the American abstract artist Jackson Pollock, featuring in their very own art exhibition where they are being sold for charity.
His grandfather, Brian Thomas, 59, said: 'My wife, his grandmother, is a well-known local artist and it started with Leo joining in, basically uninvited, into her work.
'So she used to get him a canvas and set him up with paints on the floor and it just went from there.
Artistic Leo, pictured here aged 3, is able to concentrate on his work for over an hour at a time
'It began by getting him to recognise different colours and mixtures and shapes. Now it is his favourite pastime.
'I suppose you'd call them impressionism - they're definitely inspired by his choice of colours, and I think he's got a very good choice in colours.
'And they're really quite good. The first day of the exhibition a man came in and got halfway down the wall and turned to me and asked, 'Are you Leo?' - quite seriously.
'He thought they'd been painted by an adult, and I pointed him to the other wall which tells Leo's story. He immediately bought a painting. We've got about 40 in the exhibition, and they represent two years of Leo's work.'
Leo was born with cerebral palsy and terminal pulmonary vein stenosis, a condition that means the veins running from his heart to his lungs will become eventually blocked, killing him.
Doctors told his mother, a care assistant from Taunton, Somerset, he was unlikely to survive past six months old, and in the first year of his life Leo's family was told nine times to prepare for the worst.
But Leo, who suffers from intermittent deafness, battled through and eventually moved home, where he developed a fascination for art as part of therapy to help him communicate.
Now he creates dazzling abstract works full of feeling with sweeping colours on black backgrounds.
Leo's grandfather, a retired electronics and communications worker, added: 'Amongst his biggest problems is the ability to communicate because he has cerebral palsy.
Little Leo's work has been likened to Jackson Pollock's paintings such as 'Number 17, 1949' pictured
'One of the ways we actually got him to communicate is through activities - painting is one of those things that he can do.
'My wife's taught him a sort-of no boundaries approach. It has been great for Leo - it's got him communicating. He has at least three sessions a week, and in the winter four or five.
'Some children of his age would not concentrate for more than 15 minutes, but he loves painting so much he can be absorbed for an hour and a half.'
The paintings, which range from £4 to £110, are being sold at Taunton Library until Saturday. All proceeds are for the children's unit at Musgrove Park Hospital where he still receives treatment.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1291202/Terminally-ill-boy-5-stuns-doctors-surviving-holding-art-exhibition.html#ixzz0sZkrGZPx
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