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iAMHCMC - Designing a Better Future

4/18/2025

Teaching doesn't always require words. Just look at the work of Dao Van Hoang, who teaches conservation practices through vibrant drawings and graphic designs.

Drawing is my lifelong hobby, and nature's stories are my passion now. The two didn't meet until 1999, when I first crossed the Dong Nai river on the ferry to enter Cat Tien National Park. I discovered thousands of strange creatures, mammals covered with scales, tadpoles that grow canines like vampires, and wanted to draw them all. With my first tablet and digital pen, I made a small book to be distributed to children around the park to help them understand the forest and its creatures.

With the success of the book, WWF commissioned me to paint a 200km2 wall at the reception with the fauna and flora of the park. I used to escape the advertising agency where I worked to come to the park to paint the leopard cat, python and other creatures at the top of the wall, perching on an acrobatic ladder.

You can still see this mural at the reception, and the other artwork I did with house paint at the canteen depicting a life-size elephant, rhino, tiger and a bird wall for bird lovers.

Some animals are lucky enough to be confiscated by the combined efforts of the government's Forest Protection Department and an NGO named Wildlife At Risk, and they end up in a temporary rescue centre. Telling that story was complex and needed more than a tablet or house paint. Within 72 km 2, I used an art installation, painting, graphic design and interior lighting to explain to visitors how close to extinction Vietnamese wildlife is, what is needed to save them and how one can help.

The marine environment faces similar issues. The Con Dao archipelago is an example. This paradise of pristine beaches and coral reefs is assaulted by pollution and overfishing. There is little hope of convincing grown-ups not to spoil their own habitat, but I thought young school kids were more open to conservation messages. So I combined visuals and sounds to convey the "Love Your Sea" message. Half the population of the island was drawn to the venue.

While I still struggle with the logistical and financial aspects of being an artist, most of my wildlife art is about hope, hope for a better environment.

iAMHCMC - April 2017

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Oi Magazine - Draw of the wild

4/15/2025

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Artist Dao Van Hoang speaks about the importance of wildlife conservation through his art.

WILDLIFE ARTIST DAO VAN HOANG is sitting next to his easel in his 10th floor apartment overlooking the Saigon River. Despite his impressive oeuvre, the 52-year-old conservationist is quick to downplay his artistic credence.

I don't consider myself as an artist," he says. "I don't have an art background or see things the way an artist sees them, I guess. I don't know a lot of artists. I don't exchange ideas with them. I don't go to artists' club. I feel uncomfortable."

His easel holds unfinished painting of a rhinoceros, its skin emanating the texture of cracked earth, thick and scorched by the sun. He’s mulling over the idea of introducing a little bird to enhance the scene's composition.

Soft afternoon light pours over his bookshelves stacked with titles such as Primates of Vietnam and Fishes of the Mekong and colors the curious souvenirs of a well-seasoned traveler; a wooden gecko, a hand-painted boomerang, antique cameras salvaged from Parisian boutiques.

But most intriguing are the canvases, which capture the hidden idiosyncrasies of animals in a way more memorable and permanent than photography. One portrays the gentle curiosity of a tiger, another the fluidity of pacific reef herons flying over the sea of Muine.

"To promote myself I have to call myself a wildlife artist but deep inside I don't think that's the end purpose of what I do," he says. "I love animals and paint them to know them better."

Hoang uses acrylic painting to create detailed and realistic renderings of animals in their natural habitats. His work can be seen in murals in national parks and public spaces as well as on canvas. He travels the world, sketchpad in hand, drawing the animals he encounters.

Before embracing this lifestyle in 2013, Hoang was creative director for several advertising agencies. At one point he was even a French army soldier. And although his focus is now on the tropical nature of Southeast Asia, it was the tamer countryside of Western Europe that accompanied his youth. He arrived there as a refugee in 1980 after a desperate voyage off the coast of South Vietnam at the age of 15.

Growing up in Saigon, Hoang marveled at the creatures in the zoo and made picture books of them from magazine clippings. At the climax of Vietnam's war with Pol Pot's Cambodia in 1979, his mother made the painful decision to send her only son away from his homeland with one of his five older sisters. The family had saved up enough money for the two of them, deciding that anything was better than conscription in a war-torn and economically impoverished country.

The plan was to slip out of Saigon in a sampan, a flat-bottomed boat designed for rivers, and reach Thailand within three days. A tremendous storm swept away most of the food supplies on the first night but fortunately the 23 passengers and crew survived. Without any knowledge of sea navigation and only a small engine to support them, they looked on helplessly as their sampan began to drift.

"Somehow we survived for six, seven days...until day 10. Then we saw from a distance a small stretch of sand. We were so happy."

They had reached a small Indonesian island and were taken to a refugee camp the next day. After hearing Hoang speak a few French words, Red Cross volunteers sent them to France where Hoang attended a boarding school. After a decade, Hoang was granted a permit to see his mother in Vietnam though it came with a mandatory year in the French Army, a clause specifically for refugees who wished to gain citizenship and return to France.

"I hated the army. It was the longest year of my life," reflects Hoang, who returned regularly to Vietnam until settling permanently in 1996. He became an art director for an advertising agency and then rose to become its creative director for more than 15 years.

"My first few years in advertising were very passionate but after 10 years you know enough and the bad side of it." Leaping from director in a lucrative industry to full time painter has unsurprisingly dented his cash flow.

"I still don't make a living with it," he laughs. "I didn't think I could make a living but I saw other wildlife artists who could make a living. I had to try my luck to follow my passion. I said to my wife I want to give it a try for five years and after maybe 10 exhibitions I'll decide if I have failed or succeeded."

Nearly into his third year as a wildlife artist, Hoang has held exhibitions in the US, Thailand, Italy, Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam. Things seem to be going well.

He sprawls three of seven travel diaries across his desk. Meticulously neat and beautifully illustrated, they are like the records of an adventurous Victorian naturalist. The pages are filled with flora and fauna from along the equator.

"I love Africa and also Central and South America," he explains. "Everywhere you're around the equator and have the jungle. With the jungle there are more things to see." The majority of Hoang's paintings are inspired from his "first emotions" of seeing his subject. Painting a lemur, for example, would mean first pinpointing its home, Madagascar, on the map, and then traveling there to see it. So far he has been to almost 30 countries across five continents.

Of course, observing each animal like this is an expensive pursuit, and impractical for each work. He looks for inspiration in books and videos for some paintings, especially when choosing a theme to exhibit, such as the 25 Most Endangered Primates collection he made for a conference in the US. "Some of them I've never seen either in the wild or in rescue centers. I have to paint from created emotions through reading them and watching videos of them."

His usual three-step process for painting begins with field trips; sketching, photographing and studying the animals. Then comes the ideation; more studying its anatomy, ecology and behavior, even checking with a specialist before sketching the composition. Around 70 percent of the painting is achieved on the first day of brushwork, he says, and the rest is usually completed within two weeks. An average (50cm x 70cm) acrylic on canvas is priced between USD700 and USD1,200.

Studying wild animals comes with its risks. American herpetologists who are friends with Hoang invited him on an annual research trip in the jungles of Vietnam. They trekked in the snake's habitat from 8pm to 2am every night searching for reptiles.

"I tried to pull the tail of a snake without knowing what it was. We need to know the snake before you handle them but that time I was maybe a little bit too passionate and too stupid." The snake turned back and bit Hoang. It was a kukri, fangs sharp enough to puncture birds' eggs, but non-venomous. "He bit me here," says Hoang, pointing to his hand. "Gnawing on my finger, the blood running. The next day I felt it was pretty stupid. Luckily I'm still here today."

Around 2009, during the time Hoang freelanced for Vietnamese charity Wildlife at Risk, the cable channel Animal Planet filmed him and his colleagues releasing Siamese crocodiles and pythons into Cat Tien National Park. The Javan rhinoceros once roamed that area until the last one was shot and killed by poachers in 2010.

"I try not to think negatively but most of the time you can't help but being depressed. [The Javan rhinos'] fate was doomed anyway. There was a very small population to be viable. Rhino is too late, tiger is too late. Pangolin, there's still hope. There's a strong wave of awareness about them now."

Hoang cites traditional medicine and the curiosity of eating new meat as the biggest threats to some animals but he has also had some positive experiences. In 2014 he joined wildlife charity Fauna and Flora International on a trip to Cao Bang where they discovered endangered eastern black crested gibbons living near a village. To save the gibbons, the government rehomed the people - a "case for hope," says Hoang.

He plans to paint hornbills, primates and owls for conferences in Borneo, the US and Italy next year. He also will continue to paint the "small, inconspicuous animals of Asia."

"I would like to bring them out to the public and say they're just as beautiful as the wolf of North American or the lynx of Europe," he adds.

Oi Magazine - December 2016

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AsiaLIFE - Wildlife Artist Dao Van Hoang

4/14/2025

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Dao Van Hoang is an artist and conservationist who hopes to pass his love of animals on to children so they can help preserve the world's wildlife.

"People have to know that these animals exist in the first place," Hoang said. "I would like people to know them. Once they do I'm sure people will care and love them. That's the first step. Hopefully that will trigger the protection instinct and things go from there."

Hoang's passion for animals and art were apparent from an early age. As a toddler he began drawing with chalk on the concrete floor of his home in Vietnam, and he recalls being bitten by a crab that his mum bought for dinner because he was trying to examine its pinchers so he could draw them.

Circumstances took Hoang away from his art for many years, but now the father-of-two is where he wants to be, a full-time artist with the freedom to teach children about wildlife, including the exotic and lesser-known species.

In 2014, Hoang quit his advertising job to go freelance. His first big gig was providing artwork for the biannual International Primatological Society Congresses, which was held in Hanoi in 2014.

That was his first exhibition. Since then he has created artworks to exhibit at scientific conferences around the world, including the 2105 Association of Tropical Biology for Conservation conference in Phnom Penh, the 2015 European Federation for Primatology conference in Rome, and this year's American Society for Primatologists conference in Washington DC and the International Hornbill conference in Malaysia.

Hoang often accompanying biological expeditions in different parts of the world. "The scientists, they collect things and watch them and I observe them," he said.

With no formal art training, Hoang taught himself anatomy and perspective. "I read. A lot. I read books about drawing, animation, movies. I learned everything in bits and pieces."

Conservation Work

Hoang and his wife Hue are both dedicated conservationists. They hope their young children will inherit a world that takes better care of its environment.

"We need to put more thinking into educating kids about the environment and conservation. And trash," he said, pointing out that when he was growing up he knew more about African and American animals than about Vietnam's wildlife.

Hopefully Hoang's role as a public relations ambassador for lesser-known animals will help save the planet, including some of Vietnam's endangered species.

AsiaLIFE - January 2018

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