In this inaugural year of Art Basel Hong Kong, Rossi & Rossi presents a series of new paintings in a solo exhibition by Tibetan artist Tsherin Sherpa.

All of them have only been finished this year and include a group of works entitled Golden Child/Black Clouds. These paintings, richly layered with complex images immaculately painted and set against the sheen of gold and silver leaf enlivened with glitter, continue the artist’s exploration of the detachment that exiled Tibetans of the Diaspora feel for their homeland, which he explored in his acclaimed Tibetan Spiritexhibition held in last year in London. These spirits he saw as pioneers and aliens, exploring the new and foreign environments in which they found themselves after the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959. According to the Sherpa, these spirits have become wiser with time and now hide in the smoke watching over the next generation of Tibetan children, which he worries are being damaged by the violence to which they are often the silent witness.

These Tibetan children, scattered throughout the East and West, often severed from or simply unaware of the cultural roots which have informed and nurtured their more private and spiritual lives for centuries look towards each other: Tibetan parents living in the West wish to send their children eastwards to learn about their traditional culture, while children in Tibet dream of travelling to America. The silhouettes that seemingly inhabit the black clouds surrounding the children, are a warning to the dangers and chaos of the world in which both groups find themselves. However, the children gaze out at us through skin of burnished gold suggesting hope in the future, despite the clouds, dark with the smoke of immolation, whilst the butterflies that flicker across the surfaces speak of transformation, of promise, of growth.

Image: © Tsherin Sherpa, Rossi & Rossi