Reaching a Peak

New Tibet Center Showcases Works by Three Exiled Artists

by Deryl Davis

Exerpt from a longer article which appeared in theWashington Diplomat

.........."Old Soul, New Art" is the first exhibit of its kind in the ICT's new home. It gathers works by three established Tibetan artists, all living in exile, as well as several paintings by a young local Tibetan artist. The small exhibit opens with a series of photographic self-portraits by London-based Gonkar Gyatso titled "My Identity." The four-photo series charts Gonkar Gyatso's shifting identity as he moves from China (where he was the first Tibetan artist to paint a mural in Beijing's Great Hall of the People) back to Lhasa (where he founded the "Sweet Tea House" school of contemporary Tibetan artists) and onto self-imposed exile in London.

In each photo, Gonkar Gyatso appears seated before a large canvas looking out at the viewer, but the context in each is radically different. The first shows the artist in Tibetan robes before a traditional Buddhist-style painting. In the second, he wears a Chairman Mao-style olive green jacket and cap, and the figure on the canvas is Mao himself. In the third, a more contemporary-looking artist sits before a painting of Potala Palace and the Dalai Lama. And in the fourth, the exiled artist sits in a bare room, a vase of flowers behind him and a red-and-blue sphere on the canvas in front.

An accompanying note explains Gonkar Gyatso's own ideological journey from Maoism (his father was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army) to eventually embracing his own cultural heritage and, after 1989, creating a kind of activist art. The latter is apparent in a group of pencil drawings (mostly from 2005) placed near the photographs. Several depict a Buddha or dancing god made out of both Chinese and Tibetan characters, and they offer ironic commentary on accompanying quotes from Chairman Mao. In others, the seated Buddha is made from pop-art stickers of Mickey Mouse, Spiderman, and other vestiges of Western commercial culture.

The remainder of the exhibit highlights work by Losang Gyatso, a Tibetan artist in exile in Boulder, Colo., and Karma Phuntsok, a Tibetan resident in Australia since 1981. Of the three older Tibetan artists' work, the pieces by Losang Gyatso may be the most eclectic, drawing on both Buddhist and pre-Buddhist imagery and symbolism. Losang's colorful paintings exhibit the kind of thick, rough lines and organic motion often associated with the work of Vincent Van Gogh. But instead of familiar wheat fields and starry skies, Losang offers the steady gaze of the green-faced Tibetan goddess Tara and the thick outlines of the "Wild Blue Yak," a common Tibetan symbol. Losang's "Pilgrim" borrows the geometric imagery of Cubism to depict a green-robed supplicant before a traditional outdoor altar and prayer flag.

Karma Phuntsok, the eldest of these artists, escaped from Tibet with his family after the Dalai Lama was forced to flee the country in 1959. His work, mostly acrylic on canvas, reflects a mix of traditional Tibetan "thangka" painting and modern influences. His canvases depict the seated Buddha against different backgrounds, the most unusual of which is "Vajra," in which a blue Buddha seems to float in the center of a swirling, multi-colored sky.

The exhibition closes with several pieces by young local artist Tenzin Chopak, whose work reflects his interest in science fiction and fantasy and has fewer obvious Tibetan references. Of particular note is the wide-eyed, gnomish "Tibetan Monk," who might almost have sprung from the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy or from the loins of the charcoal-faced Martian in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon series. Chopak's interest in pop culture might take one back to the pop-art Buddhas of Gonkar Gyatso at the exhibit's beginning. If so, it would be fitting. As most of us know, a circular theme is nothing new to Tibetans.