October Show: Front Gallery
Location
About
Arts Society of Kingston presents Gurmi Lama: Rivers Meeting
This solo exhibition features a selection of Gurmi Lama’s past and recent works, created using gouache, gold, acrylic, and oil. Bridging tradition and contemporary life, East and West, and the spiritual and material, Lama’s work reinterprets traditional thangka painting influences and techniques to explore contemporary themes.
Born in Solukhumbu, Nepal, Lama began studying thangka painting with his father as a teenager. After completing his BA at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, he studied contemporary art with Nepalese painter and writer Manuj Babu Mishra. He has taught thangka painting in his Kathmandu studio and served for nine years as an instructor for Naropa University’s Abroad Program in Nepal. His work is held in institutional and private collections internationally.
Lama’s portraits move beyond strict realism to explore memory, personality, and lived experience. Other works draw on humor, trauma, dreams, happiness, and the frustrations of everyday life. His intuitive approach explores the tensions between tradition and contemporary life, reality and imagination, and beauty and uncertainty.
Gurmi Lama: Perception will be on view in ASK’s FRONT Gallery from October 3 through October 31, 2026. The public is invited to the opening reception on Saturday, October 3, from 3:00–5:00 PM.