Pekar Monsel
Pekar Monsal is an artist born in Atro, Gaba in Kham to a family tradition of Tibetan sculpture and painting. After graduating in 1990 from Northwest Minorities University in Lanzhou, Gansu, with a concentration in oil painting, and additional studies in sculpture, design, dance, music, poetry and philosophy, she was a book designer and translator of Tibetan folk stories.
She left for Dharamsala, India in 1993 where she continued to create art and worked to promote art within the local Tibetan community, teaching art classes for students school as well as training art teachers. In 2004 she published her essay Women’s Status in Tibetan Society: Don’t Laugh at Women’s Hardship, a clear and powerful call for gender equity and female empowerment in Tibetan society, chronicling her reflections on art, creativity, and her own experiences as a Tibetan, a woman, and an artist.
Pekar Monsal later returned to Tibet with her new family and continues to create art through painting, sculpture and has recently been working with digital arts that discusses topics like Feminism, Tibetan Identity, Tibetan History, Buddhism, Science, etc. Throughout, her strong feminist convictions, unique talent, and prolific body of work clearly mark her as a distinguished artist and pioneer of her generation. She has exhibited in Tibet, China, and internationally, including in the United States, India, and France. She currently works in Tibet and is based from a studio in Pixian near Chengdu.
Past Exhibitions
- 2000. Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington DC, USA.
- 2002. Fading Dreams: Painting and Sculptures of Pekar, Amnye Machen Institute (AMI), Dharamsala, India.
- 2004. Tibet 76′ eme foirexpo de Nior, Foire Internationale de Nancy, France.
- 2024. Reimagine exhibition in dialogue with Self-portrait — Life/My Daughter, My Son and I and Self-portrait — Green Tara, New York, USA.
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