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Tibetan Art of Tashi Norbu

Expression of the sacred

There are few artists who have a genuine, beautiful and especially working thangka painting.
It is said that the young Tibetan refugee Tashi Norbu is the best, followed
by his three brothers, who all still reside in the vicinity of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala,
India. Tashi lives in Ghent, where he was alternating the painting of traditional mandalas with more contemporary Buddhist art.

Tashi Norbu grew up in Dharamsala, but otherwise than his brothers, who entered in the monastery, took the offer seven years ago of establishing himself with a permanent residence status in Belgium where he could study modern painting at the St. Lukas Academy in Ghent.

“I have an independent spirit,” says Tashi.  ”I do not really matter where I am.
It’s nice here in Belgium, I also go every year at least once back to my family in
Dharamsala and Bhutan. “

Sticking to the culture

The mission of a traditional painter and Tashi Norbu is not separated from the deliberate destruction of Tibetan culture by China, that since 1957 a barbaric war on all fronts
argues against the Dalai Lama, the original population and the Tibetan religious culture. The government- in-exile is committed to this culture whatever the cost to maintain. Talents as Tashi cannot thereby be missed. He says: “Two years after the invasion the Chinese created a huge massacre. Tens of thousands Tibetans, including my parents, fled over the border to Bhutan, a small kingdom in the Himalayas. In the early eighties, the old king passed away and there was a new one that did not have the same respect for our culture. My parents had to flee a second time. I was eight years old when we came to Dharamsala.

It is good there, you are helped by all the monastery. The sister of the Dalai Lama runs a few excellent schools, where also many Westerners follow an education. In high school
the teachers realised I was talented in drawing. They asked if in return for the school fee I wanted to paint all the school walls, it was a large school for five hundred children. And then the sleeping and study areas, the prayer hall, everything! I still find it great to occasionally go back and walk in an environment that from head to toe was painted by me as a child. “

“After my graduation the director said that he would like me to follow the training in Delhi Indian painting and he even wanted to pay this training out of his pocket! But I would prefer to do Tibetan themes did not accept that offer. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a training for contemporary Tibetan Buddhist painting!
The modern techniques, which in my spare work use, I only learned in Ghent. I decided
so to go to the Thanka academy for a training period of five years that combines painting
with an intensive study of the Tibetan language and religious tradition. I have a beautiful
time! And I felt privileged when I together with six others joined the Office of the Dalai Lama, say the White House of our government in exile. But it is Tibetan, so more like a large campus. I there made a few large pieces for the Dalai Lama and do it a few times a year, always together with my brothers. “

The best silk, the most beautiful pigments

“A [thang-ka] is literally a painting that can be rolled up. The lamas take them when
they go to villages to teach people about our religion and its many manifestations
of Buddha. Such a painting has to withstand dust, grease of fingers, dirt and snow, frost and heat. In theory it should last for centuries, also because the images usually are sacred.
If it’s good, a thangka is animated. Such a beautiful thing you do not make only for a few decades, so therefore you use only the best materials. The best silk, linen and brocade, the strongest preparations for the cloth, the finest pigments. In addition, we use stones, which we so finely ground that from the dust we can get pigments, which in turn are mixed into colors. This type of pigment is impervious to sun or frost or wetness, it is as strong as the rocks themselves. “

It sometimes happens that the subject on a thangkais more worldly than the divine sphere
of Buddha. A touch of history and folklore here there, a hero story or an important
literary work, that belongs to the ancient tradition that is called thangkas. But these are exceptions that prove the rule. Most performances, especially mandalas, are intended to include the simple soul to help ascend to the atmosphere of the
[Bodhisattvas], the Dalai Lama is one. Tashi: “A bodhisattva is the manifestation of a
higher being in the shape of a man. It is a soul that one last time comes on earth to
assist humanity and to emphasize the path to awareness and enlightenment. A soul, “says
Tashi, “from mere compassion. Compassion is not the same as the pity that does affect you to give money for an abused animal or an oppressed people that die from hunger, although that certainly is very important. In the Buddhist sense of the word compassion means in the first place, the ability to see any other creature as totally equivalent to yourself. But also that you are aware of the suffering of every single soul on earth, at all levels and throughout, needy or not! Poverty is very depressing, hunger is terrible, but mental suffering in Buddhism is equally sorry. A bodhisattva knows how this suffering can be
lifted and teaches that and is itself a living example. He or she is busy with his or
its last incarnation before definitive god, a savior of the world and a soul permanently and literally will be included in the white light. The mandala is a tool to feel that state of wisdom and compassion, though only to allow, through concentration and meditation
to reach out. Exactly that longing you feel when you meditating on a mandala. “

Perfect order and magic

Look at those beautiful [Kalachakra] mandala, by Tashi and his brothers. The wheel (chakra) of the time (kala) discloses not only the pattern of creation, but let Buddhists also see how the universal love use the time all beings with a sensitive awareness to enlightenment. To Western eyes, unfamiliar with Buddhist symbolism, it is not easy to find a clue here. Until you begin to get the perfect order in the mandala, which ‘sacred geometry’, which can also be found in the art and architecture of ancient Egypt, the Mayans and Celts, the North American Indians and the early kabbalists. These patterns, says Tashi, were passed in the fifth century BC by Buddha himself. The Kalachakra mandala includes the ‘homes’ of no less than 722 gods which each have a different appearance of the male and female Buddha. Sometimes the male energy is dominant, then the female. And everything, each circle and each line has its own spot. It is precision work, and you can easily a mistake that is often difficult to repair. In this case, the picture immediately trash in, because the magic no longer works. Tashi: “It is a composition of circles, with in each circle many squares. In those squares the gods have their own place. It seems like they all stand exactly at the same distance from the center but that is not so. If you do not put them exactly in their spot, the gods do not come to life.
That why this work is so hard to learn and asks such an enormous concentration. When I  would not occasionally alternate my sacred art with my free, modern art, I would not be able to sustain. If I am working with a contemporary canvas, I still work with the same concentration, and each object is at exactly the right place, but the big difference is that then I feel really free to be the modern Tibetan who I am today, a man who lives in Western Europe, in 2007. Intensely religious and totally devoted to Tibetan Buddhism.
But free to choose the themes, colors and techniques that I want. “

Rituals and mantras

Tashi and his brothers make a couple of times a year a precious mandala. Occasionally monks travel to Ghent and once a year Tashi is traveling to Dharamsala. They are about a month working on a canvas of over two meters high. “At this sacred mandalas,” says Tashi explains, ” you work from the outside inwards. The technique of the one may of course not differ from those of the other; Moreover, you have to be intuitively tuned completely. Because during your work you are the vehicle of the expression of the sacred, you may only start painting after a few rituals preceded. My brothers run the rituals, then we say together the mantras. If we then start painting feel we have always been very peaceful and relaxed, as if by the work we are free of ambiguity and anxiety and all those little cares and unhappiness we experience in your normal waking consciousness. It is a delicious state of mind, I would always like to feel that way. For this reason, my brothers and I also regularly organize mandala workshops for the public. We Tibetans believe that the mandala radiates great energy to the people who watch while the piece is created. Like they are showered with good karma. “

More information about Tashi Norbu and backgrounds den of his work, visit www.tashinorbu.be

You can visit Temnikova & Kasela Gallery (Müürivahe 22) without a prior appointment between September 27 – 30, 14.00 – 18.00. (Just press the yellow buzzer downstairs!)

18 – 20 August, open 12 pm – 6 pm
till 31 August open when called ahead 6405770

Participating artists: Dedron, Gade, Nortse, Tenzingm Rigdol ja Tsering Nyandak

16 – 31 August, open Wed – Sat, 11 am – 6 pm

Tashi Norbu hails from Bhutan, and Govinda Sah “Azad” , “Tene” Garbuja are from Nepal. All have trained both at home and in Europe, and the work of…each reflects a rich and diverse range of influences, from their native countries, from India, from Tibet,
from the sacred and the secular, and from their life experiences. British artist Tashi Mannox is also contributing work to the Exhibition. Trained in Tibetan calligraphy, his beautiful paintings combine classical iconography and script with modern sensibility.

TASHI NORBU – more info on website:http://www.tashinorbu.be/

GOVINDA SAH `AZAD` – info on website : http://govindasah.com/?pag​e_id=16

PREMILA VAN OMMEN – Premila is coming for our exhibition from London, who is our artist contributor to the exhibition, as well as great help in organizing of this exhibition. Premila is a member of Satsang Productions http://www.satsangproducti​ons.com/ and she curated the art exhibitions’ part of the UK’s Himalaya Film and Cultural Festival.
Our Society of Himalayan Cultures (Himaalaja Kultuuride Selts) is connected tightly to the crowd of Satsang Productions by both friendship and common interests in presenting different aspects of the Himalayan cultural areas.

FLERA BIRMANIS – Flera Birmanis from Latvia http://www.saatchionline.c​om/flera she suites very well to the whole concept of the exhibition – the fusion of the Himalayan art and western art genres and techniques – geographically and professionally she has gone along the opposite way – from the West to the East.

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