Tashi GurungThangka Art

Traditional Tibetan Buddhist thangka paintings and mandalas by Nepalese artist Tashi Gurung, made with hand-ground mineral pigments.

Tashi Gurung, a thangka painter from the once-forbidden Mustang Kingdom of Nepal, depicts Buddhist deities, mandalas and scenes from the life of the Buddha on prepared cotton canvas, grinding mineral pigments such as lapis lazuli, cinnabar and malachite by hand and sometimes adding 24-carat gold. Subjects shown include the Wheel of Life, the Kalachakra Mandala, the Thousand Buddhas and a medicine thangka.

In 1999 Gurung helped restore 500-year-old Buddhist murals in Mustang’s monasteries, work later featured in the NOVA documentary Lost Treasures of Tibet.

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