Vietnamese art is hot today and ex-cop Dao Anh Khanh was part of the contemporary art scene early on. At his first exhibition in Shanghai, he praises China for giving artists plenty of breathing room, writes Yao Minji.Thirty years ago, Hanoi native Dao Anh Khanh was a policeman who supervised Vietnamese artists "to check if the ideas behind their art matched with political correctness."Now, having explored contemporary painting, dance, and installation art for nearly 20 years, Dao is holding his first painting exhibition "From Nothing to Zero" in Shanghai.Though he fell in love with art at the age of eight, Dao had to follow in the footsteps of his policeman father. He studied in the police academy during the 1970s when socialist realism was the only style allowed in Vietnam."They didn't have a standard for supervising art. It was mostly subjective views about whether the works followed proper ideas," Dao says in an interview with Shanghai Daily.The 48-year-old painter had worked for the police department for 18 years before fulfilling his dream and attending the Industrial Art College in Hanoi.Involved from the very beginning in Vietnam's contemporary art scene, the ex-cop ran into trouble early on with his vividly colored landscapes, paintings of nude women and scenes of vigorous modern dance. He was criticized for "illustrating irrelevant humanistic content" and contrary ideas."In the early 1990s, my works were new to Vietnam. The idea for art was more like propaganda. Even though we didn't say anything political, we were checked for the contents," he recalls.Dao sees a similarity between the art scenes in Vietnam and China, both in terms of history and the current commercialization. He considers the artistic situation in China better."I think the Chinese government knows how to give artists more freedom and let them develop," he says. "China can be stronger in art if it provides the conditions for openness for the artists' thinking and feelings."Dao says the situation in Vietnam is "much better now compared with 10 years ago, but we still have too much politics in art."On the other hand, Shanghai artists see Dao's paintings as very much like those of Chinese painters."To Westerners, they are probably the same, which is why Vietnamese art is also hot on the global market now," says painter Teng Haiying. "The subject of the painting, the use of color and the neo-religious ideas behind it are all highly Oriental."The exhibit "From Nothing to Zero" presents Dao's works in the past three years - lacquer-painted landscapes featuring stones, and nude women doing ordinary jobs in the streets - vendors, shop keepers, sweepers."In my deepest mind, trees, stones, rivers, mountains and human beings can all talk together and communicate," says the artist who makes stones a major subject of many landscapes."When I see a stone, it's like seeing a person talking to me. Of all the elements in nature, stones resemble human beings the most. All stones are different from each other and they each have their own personalities," notes Dao.Whether he paints leaves, flowers, the sun, or the ocean, Dao puts stones prominently in the frame, often in front of the main subject. Moreover, he paints human faces on the stones to convey relations among humans, or relations between humans and nature."Sometimes I leave a stone alone in a corner, which is like a single person. Or, I put a stone close to another, resembling a couple in society," he says.Besides his strong connections to nature, the artist expresses his fantasies about women in his series of paintings of nudes doing normal jobs, selling flowers, riding bicycles or playing the violin in the street.People usually paint nudes in an isolated space like a bed or a sofa, he says. "But I want to bring them out of the closed room into nature, which is the beauty of life, real life."It is my dream that beautiful women can come out working into the streets of Vietnam, naked if they want to be, and feel no shame or danger," he concludes.