Our tenth exhibition presents Ngawang Chodak’s remarkable fusion of ancient Tibetan thangka art with contemporary expression, celebrating the profound synergy between lineage and artistic evolution. Ngawang Chodak, born in 1980, is a master of traditional Tibetan thangka art and an emerging contemporary Tibetan artist. He is a devoted Buddhist practitioner and a direct descendant of Repa Dorje Chang, who was one of Jetsun Milarepa’s disciples. For nearly two decades, Ngawang Chodak has dedicated his artistic mastery to one of the most notable Buddhist art projects, Sangwa Gyachen – the ‘Bearing the Seal of Secrecy,’ for His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Khandro Kunga Bhuma Tseringma Rinpoche.

After completing his art education and apprenticeship, Ngawang Chodak focused on cultural heritage conservation from 2000 to 2003. During this period, he worked on restoring antique Tibetan thangka paintings for private collectors. Some of these thangka paintings were on display at the Rubin Museum and during Asia Week in New York.

From 2003 to 2021, Ngawang Chodak was honored to be the artist-in-residence at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Palace in Dharamsala, India. During his residency, he completed several distinguished projects, including twenty-five section sacred scripture paintings, two sets of thirty-two thangka collections, a refuge tree thangka, and a five-story Great Stupa inner mural thangka paintings in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India.

Having completed his long-term residency, Ngawang Chodak has now decided to pursue a career as a Tibetan contemporary artist. He believes in preserving and reinventing Tibetan and Himalayan arts through modern interpretation to enrich the global art culture and philosophy, particularly in the broader context of Asia. He currently lives and works in Kathmandu, Nepal.