A List 2/16/04 TIBETAN BUDDHIST 'THANGKA' PAINTINGS EXHIBITED IN SLU GALLERY CANTON – "Visual Prayers: Sacred Tibetan Buddhist Thangka Paintings" will be on exhibition in St. Lawrence University's Richard F. Brush Art Gallery from February 26 through April 3. From Monday, March 1, through Friday, March 12, Kalsang Tsering Sherpa, from the Tsering Art School, Shechen Institute of Traditional Tibetan Art in Kathmandu, Nepal, will be on campus as artist-in-residence, and create a thangka painting. Thangkas are Tibetan iconographic paintings used as visual support for meditation practice. This exhibition includes both historical and contemporary works. Thangka paintings from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Collection and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, as well as St. Lawrence University's Permanent Collection, will be exhibited. A thangka functions as a spiritual or sacred act, as an offering, and as a visual prayer, in terms of both product and process. As objects, they are used to visualize the energies of particular deities or to understand concepts such as the nature of emptiness, for example. Likewise for the artist, the creation of a thangka is a meditative offering guided by pure intentions related to dharma teachings. Kelsang Tsering was born in Baudhanath, Kathmandu, in 1981 and was placed in the Shechen Monastery when he was 11 years old to begin monastic training. When Konchog Lhadrepa started to teach thangka painting there in 1996, he had finished his preliminary studies and was asked whether he would like to train in the ritual or philosophical colleges of the monastery, or in the art school. He said he would like to make art, and Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche agreed this would be best for him. He was the first student at the Tsering Art School, graduating in 2001. He now teaches there. For more information or to arrange individual or group tours, contact the gallery at 315-229-5174.-30- Back To News Releases Back to St. Lawrence Homepage