Contemplating Tsherin Sherpa’s Spirits at Asia Society Texas

Sherry Cheng·
ArtHouston
·

Renowned Himalayan artist Tsherin Sherpa created the first work of his provocative Spirits series in 2009. In the painting, a wrathful three-eyed deity with fanged teeth stares out at the viewer with a bewildered expression. He squats against a gold background, wearing a crown adorned with skulls and a pair of tighty-whities. Even deities have to don underwear in this strange new world. Looking closer,  the viewer will see that the spirit’s body is a mosaic of tiny little photographs of Tibetan people dispersed around the world.

On view at Asia Society Texas Center through Jan. 7, 2024 and featuring more than 30 paintings, sculptures, and textiles, Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits traces the evolution of the artist and his “Spirits” as they explore questions of identity and displacement, moving from burden and confusion to empowerment and wisdom. What happens to the traditional Tibetan spirits when the people who believe in them are forced into exile? This is the essential question Sherpa contemplates throughout his series, following the complicated paths of the spirits as they try to assimilate into the contemporary world.

Referring to the first work in the series, Spirit (2009), Owen Duffy, the Nancy C. Allen Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Asia Society, explains that it is around this time that Sherpa made a transition from being a traditional painter to being a contemporary artist. Born in Nepal to an ethnically Tibetan family, Sherpa apprenticed with his father, a master thangka painter, from the age of 13 in Kathmandu. He learned all the techniques one needed to know to execute a traditional religious painting, with its schematic rendering of spaces and its myriad symbolic representations. Two works by Sherpa’s father are included in this exhibition to give context to the artist’s starting point. Sherpa moved to California in 1998 and began working on religious paintings for monasteries in the Bay Area. “Eventually he realized there is a possibility of being rooted in tradition but exploring something that’s more of a unique artistic voice,” says Duffy. “Around 2009 he developed this idea of the ‘Spirit’ character and that is what this exhibition really focuses on.”

A pair of monumental paintings mounted on traditional silk brocade scrolls dominate one wall of the first gallery. Crouching in Lucid Dream (Blue) and standing tall in Lucid Dream (Red), these spirits are front and center amidst a swirl of sharp-edged wings, stylized clouds, tiger stripes, and slithering snakes, moving from a position of burden to a position of empowerment. The autobiographical and personal nature of the works become apparent when the viewer observes the prominent gilded aluminum hands and feet that function as finials of the rods that hold the scroll. Made from casts of Sherpa’s own hands and feet, they are markers of the artist’s presence in the stories of his “Spirits.”

In the tongue-in-cheek painting Shambhala (2013), a gray-hued Spirit, drained of all color and power, holds a placard with a number and the Tibetan word for Shangri-La. He is posing for a mugshot. A few vivid butterflies and small flickering flames only serve to emphasize the colorlessness of the imprisoned Spirit. “It’s a work that directly suggests the daily occurrence of running into challenging situations where Tibetans’ movements are controlled,” says Duffy. “That’s something Sherpa very much feels and has seen, the different ways Tibet has been occupied, oppressed, and culturally repressed.”

An absurdist, occasionally irreverent, sense of humor pervades Sherpa’s works. Many of the Spirits prefer polka-dot underwear, a cheeky nod to Damien Hirst’s iconic spot paintings. In Oh My God-ness! (2009), the squatting Spirit is burdened with a large halo-like black disk filled with logos from pop culture and commerce, from McDonald’s golden arch to Snoopy, Bart Simpson, Coca-Cola, and CNN. The figure seems dwarfed by the weight of the disk. Sherpa revisits the same subject in OMG (2016), but this time the squatting figure, dripping purple and tattooed with cartoonish imagery, dominates the frame. His head is crowned with snakes, a symbol of power and authority. In Untitled (2012), the orb of logos reappears in gold, but this time the Spirit stands confidently in front, ready to take on the world. In the humorously titled Staying Alive (Too Sexy to Die) (2011), a monochromatic figure strikes John Travolta’s famous pose from Saturday Night Fever. The Spirit is having a bit of fun, but even as he thrusts one finger up to the sky, the other hand makes the gesture of the karana mudra, warding off the negative obstacles that might still stand in his way. In all four paintings, the viewer’s eyes are drawn to the polka-dot underwear, highlighting the underlying absurdity of the situations in which these spirits find themselves in the modern world.

Sherpa began collaborating with Nepal’s traditional artists after the country’s devastating 2015 earthquake. After several fruitful trips back home in the last few years, he now plans to center his art practice in Kathmandu. An entire gallery of the exhibition is dedicated to his collaborative works. In the center of the gallery is the installation piece Wish-Fulfilling Tree (2016). “This is a highlight,” says Duffy. “It’s one of Tsherin’s first collaborations when he went back to Nepal for the first time after the earthquake. For him it very much symbolizes creation out of destruction. It’s based on a traditional offering mandala that you might find at a temple where people would make offerings for intentions or wishes.”

Sherpa worked with local metalsmiths skilled in repoussé to hammer out his designs. The animals of the Zodiac circle the bottom layer while Sherpa’s own Spirit characters flash the peace sign on the higher levels. The original work included debris from the earthquake. The Houston iteration uses locally salvaged material, including gravel from Asia Society’s garden. Visitors will be able to write their own wishes which will be inserted into the mandala’s tiers.

Duffy is also excited to show three large hand-weaved hanging carpets, collaborations between Sherpa and the traditional artisans of Mt. Refuge, a design studio in Kathmandu. “They make high-end carpets with traditional methods, very beautiful and exquisite,” says Duffy. “It’s a way of providing a platform, bringing the work of traditional artists to the forefront and ensuring they have a sense of community and economic income. Tsherin is really trying to use his stature as an international artist to create lots of visibility for artists in Nepal.”

Spiritual Warrior (2020) is a collaboration between Sherpa and his father Urgen Dorje. Dorje made the traditional sketch of the Buddha, which Sherpa repeated with 35 different symbolic hand gestures across the canvas as a backdrop to a powerful female Spirit with multi-hued flowing hair. The warrior’s liquifying pigmentation activates pure energy in spiraling colors and patterns. The effect of liquification, or paint dripping, can be seen throughout the Spirits series. “The way the bodies themselves seem to be melting symbolizes the dissolution of one’s identity as you move through the world,” explains Duffy. In more recent works, that dissolution seems to signal a new dynamism, one with the power to transform.

In Spirits (Metamorphosis) (2019-20), the ever-present butterflies are now swarming in a kaleidoscopic array of colors. Two spirits, their liquifying pigmentation transformed into vibrant patterns and motifs that seem to invoke protective powers, look intently at the butterflies, contemplating this vital symbol of transformation as they go through their own.

Another eye-catching piece is Skippers (Kneedeep) (2019-20), a sculptural work named after a family of butterflies. Hands on hips and wearing golden underwear, this Spirit is fully “tattooed” front and back in the familiar patterns of wings, flames, clouds, and snakes, all in brilliant colors. Most amusingly he is blowing a piece of pink bubblegum, a clever reference to “pop” art. Many of Sherpa’s works explore the intersection between pop art and his origin as a traditional artist. “A lot of thangka paintings have that grounding in flatness and vivid colors, a graphic iconography that is meant to be legible because thangkas function as ritual objects,” explains Duffy. “I think all these things, the recurring motif and symbols, are naturally translated to Tsherin’s work.”

The grand finale of the exhibition is one of Sherpa’s largest paintings to date. Himalayan Spirits (2021) represents a cast of Spirit characters as if they were in a Bollywood poster. Hundreds of nostalgic vignettes from daily life in Nepal form the background of the painting–a little boy in a bathtub, a man making tea, a mother braiding her daughter’s hair. The eleven Spirits, each with a distinct identity and personality, unite in a single composition. The diversity within this group of Spirits is unprecedented in Sherpa’s works. “In terms of their features, expressions, attitude, their clothing, hair, and skin color, there’s a real sense of variety baked into this painting,” observes Duffy. “The cast is meant to be rounded out. Sherpa imagined the group of eleven as an incomplete ensemble of twelve. The visitor becomes the twelfth Spirit.”

—SHERRY CHENG

Sherry Cheng

Sherry Cheng is a music educator, free-lance pianist, and artistic director of the HCC Chamber Music Series.