While Vietnam has a rich rice culture, the art of paintings made of rice is still in its infancy.
TheTranh Gao Thai Hoang company started four years ago with a singlemission: to make rice painting popular in Vietnam, and introduce it tothe world.
Born and raised in Dong Nai, Hoang Minh Thai has astrong passion for the arts, especially rice paintings. After graduatingfrom the Ho Chi Minh City University of Arts, Thai took a designer jobat an advertising company.
But he continued to work on rice paintings in his free time and made them to order.
Althoughhis job paid well, after two years, he quit to work fulltime to makerice paintings. His business began locally in Dong Nai with a smallprofit over three years.
His shop in his hometown of Dong Nai was the only one of its kind.
Witha strong sense of entrepreneurship, Thai knew he would not succeed ifhe did not have the time to conduct research on how to improve histechnique.
Struggling to make ends meet, the first year was quite hard for him. Most of the orders came from friends and acquaintances.
Thai also reached out to potential customers through arts conventions, but was not successful.
Threeyears went by, and his business was struggling. In the middle of 2013,he was advised to use Google Adwords to help customers find his sitewhere over 75 percent of his sales originate.
Within six months, Adwords helped create a new market for his products in HCM City.
Inthe beginning, he used very simple techniques that he had learned atschool. He used different shades of gray-coloured fried rice andhomemade glue to put them in either horizontal or vertical lines.
Today,his rice paintings are one of a kind thanks to the new technique hedeveloped in-house. His products vary from portraits, religiouspaintings, landscapes and more.
Thai believes that his productswill be popular, but more importantly, he says he is interested inintroducing Vietnam's rich art culture to friends and art loversworldwide.-VNA
TheTranh Gao Thai Hoang company started four years ago with a singlemission: to make rice painting popular in Vietnam, and introduce it tothe world.
Born and raised in Dong Nai, Hoang Minh Thai has astrong passion for the arts, especially rice paintings. After graduatingfrom the Ho Chi Minh City University of Arts, Thai took a designer jobat an advertising company.
But he continued to work on rice paintings in his free time and made them to order.
Althoughhis job paid well, after two years, he quit to work fulltime to makerice paintings. His business began locally in Dong Nai with a smallprofit over three years.
His shop in his hometown of Dong Nai was the only one of its kind.
Witha strong sense of entrepreneurship, Thai knew he would not succeed ifhe did not have the time to conduct research on how to improve histechnique.
Struggling to make ends meet, the first year was quite hard for him. Most of the orders came from friends and acquaintances.
Thai also reached out to potential customers through arts conventions, but was not successful.
Threeyears went by, and his business was struggling. In the middle of 2013,he was advised to use Google Adwords to help customers find his sitewhere over 75 percent of his sales originate.
Within six months, Adwords helped create a new market for his products in HCM City.
Inthe beginning, he used very simple techniques that he had learned atschool. He used different shades of gray-coloured fried rice andhomemade glue to put them in either horizontal or vertical lines.
Today,his rice paintings are one of a kind thanks to the new technique hedeveloped in-house. His products vary from portraits, religiouspaintings, landscapes and more.
Thai believes that his productswill be popular, but more importantly, he says he is interested inintroducing Vietnam's rich art culture to friends and art loversworldwide.-VNA
