Singapore - Tibet with a contemporary face

Say 'Tibetan art' and one imagines the traditional Buddhist scroll paintings known as thangka. However, an exhibition of contemporary paintings from the land of lamas aims to expand this idea.

Titled "It's Past And Present: Contemporary Tibetan Art 2012", the show is on now at private gallery Luxe Art Museum until mid-April. The 70 works on display include colourful cartoons, fusion paintings done in Chinese ink brush and traditional thangka scrolls painted by third-generation artist Norbu Sithar.

The other Lhasa-based painters featured are established masters of Chinese ink brush painting Han Shuli and Yu Youxin, in their 60s and 70s, as well as younger artists in their 30s and 40s, Tsedan Jiumei, Tsering Namgyai, Bamazaxi and Dezhoin. The latter group uses the ornate colours and curlicues characteristic of traditional Tibetan decorations on walls, doors and furniture to paint modern themes.

The works were picked by the gallery's owner Christina Sui who also flew the artists in for the opening night on January 13.

She fell in love with Tibetan art on her first visit to Lhasa in 2005. Most of the paintings are not for sale as they are on loan from private collectors.

"My intention is an educational exhibition," says Sui, 45, who organised one earlier exhibition of Tibetan art here in 2009. "When people think of Tibetan art, they think of thangkas, but there is much more than that."

Highlights of the show include colourful cartoons from Dezhoin, 36, who paints changes in Tibetan society. Her generation has gone from yak butter to fizzy drinks, from recognising Buddhist deities to knowing international celebrities such as Michael Jackson. She captures that in cartoons of pop stars and politicians and figures from United States President Barack Obama to terrorist Osama bin Laden.

"To me, they are all the same," she says in Mandarin, via a translator. "I paint famous people, good or bad."

Then there are the wall-sized Chinese ink brush paintings from Beijing-born Han, who also featured in Sui's 2009 show. The 64-year-old fuses his love of Tibet with his training in Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Art to create giant homages to the Buddha or to animal life in the Himalayas.

Having lived in Lhasa for 38 years, he says that there is now little restriction on artists, compared with the past.

"In the past, art was meant to publicise politics during the Cultural Revolution. Whenever they built a railway, they got artists to come and paint the process," he says in Mandarin, through a translator. "Now my only restriction is myself. Now that I am older, I feel I must be more meticulous. Younger Tibetan artists are even freer."

However, this is not true for a third-generation thangka painter such as Norbu Sithar, 45, who had to study Buddhist scriptures and Sanskrit before he was allowed to apprentice with his grandfather. He is not allowed to smoke or drink alcohol while working on a scroll.

In addition, the figures he paints can only be posed or arranged in a certain prescribed way. "But the background can be changed," he says via a translator.

Each thangka is often the labour of two artists or more, but only a 'master' such as Norbu is skilled enough to work on the facial features and eyes of the painted figures.

"Only a master can do the eyes, otherwise the thangka will not be effective," he says, explaining that the scroll is akin to a protective amulet.

In fact, he chose to bring only paintings of minor deities and supernatural figures to Singapore, because "some thangkas are too holy to be exhibited". Still, he felt it was important that some scrolls be shown.

"Thangka is a superior art form," he says. "I want to bring thangkas and Tibetan culture to the outside world."

Akshita Nanda

The Straits Times

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