Spirits: Tsherin Sherpa with Robert Beer

Tsherin Sherpa’s works are grounded in the traditional Buddhist art of his training but stretch, bend, reconfigure, and repurpose its forms to explore contemporary concerns. The exhibition’s paintings and sculptures trace the evolution of his Spirits series whose subjects resemble Tibetan Buddhist deities transformed by the modern world. Dislocated from their home — an experience familiar to the artist and communities all over the world — these figures move from grief and confusion, to courage and self-assurance, to triumph and wisdom.

This exhibition also features a selection of line drawings by British artist Robert Beer, lauded as the first Westerner to study thangka painting and one of the tradition’s greatest and most respected masters. The drawings reveal the forms, symbols and motifs from which Sherpa pulls inspiration, while Beer’s personal journey as a Westerner whose voyages to India and Nepal transformed his work and spirit convey an important counterpoint to Sherpa’s biography.