dancer in the empty sky                   mantras and jewels                            tibetan sun 1

Shambala Center sees innovative Tibetan art by Losang Gyatso

Shambala Center in Boulder, Colorado, is a meditation, workshop and Art space that was founded by the late Tibetan Lama Chogyam Trungpa in the 1970s. Trungpa was one of the first Tibetan lamas to come to the West and was regarded as having had an extraordinary ability to communicate Tibetan Buddhist ideas to American followers. Therefore the site is a fitting space for contemporary Tibetan artist Losang Gyatso to show his latest series of giclee and lighjet prints that reveal Tibetan symbols and imagery in startlingly unexpected representations. Much of Gyatsos recent work takes imagery found in traditional Tibetan paintings, sculptures and ancient petroglyphs, which he then manipulates and redraws digitally to produce work that seem to pulsate and hum with an electronic presence. And yet as one approaches each piece, the artists hand becomes evident in the lines and color juxtapositions that seem to evoke a hyper Tibetan sensitivity. For those used to seeing Tibetan art as being static and tradition bound, this show is an eye opener.