"Contemporary Jewels" Exhibit

Contemporary Jewels: An Offering

Contemporary Tibetan Art Exhibit at the Davis Family Library

October 12, 2012 - January 11, 2013

The world has become a much smaller place in which fortunate artists are able to move more freely than ever before.

Contemporary Jewels: An Offering presents twelve works by five artists of Tibetan heritage:  Tenzin Norbu, Dorje Sherpa, Tsherin Sherpa, Tenzing Rigdol, and Palden Weinreb.  

Over the years the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson has hosted these artists, offering an unrestricted two-month residency.  At its heart, the VSC program offers a unique openness to create and engage in a cross-cultural exchange within a large international community of artists and writers.



Divergent in style and content, these five artists make use of traditional techniques in new, innovative ways to express their heritage and their experience of the collision between Tibetan Buddhist tradition and contemporary culture.  Tenzin Norbu and Dorje Sherpa continue to live in their Himalayan homelands; Tsherin Sherpa and Tenzing Rigdol emigrated from Kathmandu to the U.S. and Palden Weinreb, a native New Yorker, has a Tibetan mother and American father.  



This exhibition was organized to welcome His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and to celebrate Vermont’s connection with Himalayan culture.