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Tsherin Sherpa is a remarkable Himalayan artist who draws on Buddhist iconography to explore sexuality, gender, consumerism, and identity. I first met him 25 years ago, when he was teaching thangka painting in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was a young Buddhist hoping to learn how to paint devotional images. Since then, Tsherin has become one of the most respected contemporary artists in the world, representing Nepal at the Venice Biennale.

This episode is an edited version of a much longer conversation we recorded. If you’d like to hear the full, uncut 90-minute dialogue—including many more examples of his art—you can find it at trainahappymind.org in our Train a Happy Mind community. There’s also a video of this shorter version, featuring images of the art we discuss, available here.

Scott Snibbe: Tsherin Sherpa, I’m so pleased to have you on How to Train a Happy Mind. I’ve known you for over 20 years, we met when I was studying thangka painting, and you were a young teacher in San Francisco. A lot’s happened since then. I’m excited to have you on the show as part of our series on artists influenced by Buddhism.

Tsherin Sherpa: Yes, thank you, Scott.

Scott Snibbe: And for people listening, Tsherin’s in Nepal right now. We’re speaking remotely, I’m in Berkeley, California.

What is thangka painting?

Scott Snibbe: For someone who’s never seen a thangka painting—or maybe never even heard the word—can you explain what a thangka is?

Tsherin Sherpa: Yes, absolutely. They’re essentially paintings on scrolls. Back in the day, Buddhist masters, monks, or teachers would travel to different villages, and they’d carry thangkas with them. It’s a pictorial form of Buddhist teachings. For example, one very popular thangka is the Wheel of Life, which actually depicts the six different realms, and Mara holding samsara. The whole idea in Buddhism is how one can liberate themselves from samsara, so we’re not stuck in that cyclic existence.

Other thangkas might depict deities, and those are used for meditation practice. So it’s all deeply intertwined with both culture and spiritual practice.

My father actually learned thangka painting from his maternal uncle. Then he wanted to pass it on to one of his children. I started learning from him when I was about 12 or 13. At the same time, I was also going to school, and learning Buddhist prayers and scriptures at the nearby monastery, Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling.

Back then, Boudhha wasn’t crowded at all. When I was growing up, it was mostly empty rice fields, with just a few houses. The monastery was the most visible structure, you could see it from everywhere.

Scott Snibbe: That’s hard to imagine. For someone like me who’s only been there recently, it’s completely packed. Narrow streets, buildings squeezed together—you can barely fit a car through.

Tsherin Sherpa: Now it’s become so crowded. It’s become almost like a commercial hub for everything. So in 1998, I had the opportunity to travel to the US, and that led me to a Buddhist center in Northern California, in Sebastopol, where I became the resident thangka painter, as well as the thangka instructor for their students.

After two years working with the center, I moved to Oakland, California, and started working with Tsa Tsa Studio, which is part of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s foundation. That’s where I began teaching thangka classes, and that’s where I met you.

Scott Snibbe: That was a really special moment. So you were basically trained by your father to take over the family business as a thangka painter, and then you found your way to San Francisco.

The journey from traditional to modern art

Scott Snibbe: At that time, were you thinking of diverging from the tradition? Because now your work is extremely modern, at the highest levels of contemporary art. But back then, 25 years ago, were you planning to stick with the tradition in San Francisco?

Tsherin Sherpa: In the beginning, I was more focused on carrying on the tradition itself. But around 2003, I was invited by the Asian Art Museum to do a demonstration program called Asia Alive, where artists would demonstrate their traditional practices live at the museum. I guess someone from Jamba Juice must have visited one of those demonstrations. They reached out to the museum saying they were looking for a thangka painter to create a marketing poster—something that looked like a thangka, but wasn’t actually a thangka.

That was my first opportunity to do something outside of the traditional form. It helped me realize that Himalayan art had limited exposure in the wider world. In Boudhha, it was a vibrant scene, but abroad, very few people understood or even knew about it.

I started to think—how can I, as an artist, communicate with a broader audience? I felt the best way was to create secular art instead of sacred art. Something that could speak to the human condition: social issues, personal experiences, political themes. After working with Jamba Juice, I began to notice that my skillset could be applied in many different ways.

Scott Snibbe: This image, you have a naked figure with a big belly, all white, surrounded by translated advertising slogans in beautiful gold Tibetan script in the background.

Tsherin Sherpa: That piece came right after working with Jamba Juice. I was fascinated by how advertising works, both in the West and even here. I went online and started collecting advertising slogans, I wanted to create something that looked like a prayer flag. In the front, you see the consumer. In the back, all the marketing slogans. It looks like Tibetan script, but it’s actually English. It says things like “Buy one, get one free,” or “Food for your busy lifestyle.”

Scott Snibbe: That’s something I’ve thought about a lot in your work, especially seeing different pieces over time. There’s this relationship to pop art. A very original take on pop art. And is the belly there because he’s consumed so much? He’s the consumer?

Tsherin Sherpa: I guess so. And in hindsight, when I look back now, I think I was also drawing inspiration from my childhood. Growing up in Nepal in the 1980s, one of the most popular social events was going to a Bollywood movie. Outside the movie theater, they had these giant, hand-painted billboards—sometimes two or three stories tall. I was always fascinated by those posters.

Another big influence was comic books. Because we had so many Western friends, we had access to Tintin, Marvel, DC—all kinds of European and American comics. Their flat, two-dimensional style really resonated with me because it reminded me of thangkas. So I think I was drawing from all those early experiences when I began creating my own work.

Scott Snibbe: This image shows the shape of a Buddha’s head on a gold background. But the face is made up of the stock market ticker from the 2009 financial crash.

Tsherin Sherpa: I was trying to understand the image of the Buddha. At some point, I realized it was becoming more of a commodity. Looking back at my time as a thangka painter in the West, people would often say, “Wow, you look so meditative. You must be very calm, very mindful of what you’re creating.”

But I wanted to be honest in my contemporary work. In a way, it was also a critique of my own practice. For me, the image of the Buddha had become a product: I had to pay bills, I had to market the thangka. Buddhism became something I was selling, rather than a meditative practice.

For me, the image of the Buddha had become a product: I had to pay bills, I had to market the thangka. Buddhism became something I was selling, rather than a meditative practice.

In 2009, I was awarded a residency at the Vermont Studio Center by the Rubin Museum. That was a big turning point. It felt like my art college experience. There were over 100 artists and writers there, all creating together. I saw how many of them drew inspiration from their childhoods, and I started thinking about mine. I was very close to my grandmother. When I was painting, she would sit behind me and tell stories about her village in Tibet—stories about nomads and the spirits that protected the land.

In Himalayan culture, there’s a strong belief that certain spirits dwell in mountains, rivers, and valleys. So I began thinking: maybe I should explore that idea. For me, a spirit is like a collective mental agreement, an attitude. And I imagined that if people migrated, those spirits would travel with them. But how would they adapt to a new environment?

For me, a spirit is like a collective mental agreement, an attitude.

Back then, we didn’t have social media showing us what life looked like in the West. There was this learning curve, this sense of mystery. I started thinking that maybe the spirits would go through a similar experience, how would they readjust?

That’s when I began slowly developing this character. The body of the figure is made entirely from tiny photographs. I went on Google and searched “Himalayan people around the world,” and then created a photo mosaic. I superimposed that on my own body to form a spirit infused with Himalayan consciousness.

Scott Snibbe: A collective spirit of the modern Himalayas.

Tsherin Sherpa: I was always drawn to painting wrathful or semi-wrathful deities when I was doing thangkas. They have more expressive, accentuated lines, unlike the peaceful deities, which are very smooth and subtle. The expressions and energy of the wrathful figures felt more personal, almost like an alter ego. So in the beginning, the work was very autobiographical.

Expressing individuality through art

Scott Snibbe: This is really interesting, because the presence of the artist is almost nowhere in traditional devotional art. In many cases, you don’t even know who painted the image. How did you navigate that tension, making work that’s so personal and individual, drawn from your own experience, while coming from a tradition rooted in anonymity?

Tsherin Sherpa: When we were learning, we were actually taught to detach ourselves from the art. But in the West, I found it easier to personalize the work. Like I was saying, in Vermont I was surrounded by all these artists who were constantly looking at things from their own perspectives. I wanted to share, with a wider audience, who we are as Himalayan people: what we think, what we experience. And I wanted to share that through my own perspective, through my lived experience.

I wanted to share, with a wider audience, who we are as Himalayan people. I wanted to share that through my own perspective, through my lived experience.

Scott Snibbe: I think sometimes people stereotype Eastern and Western culture. They’ll say Eastern culture is collective, focused on the good of all, and Western culture is individualistic—and that the individualism is a flaw. But that wasn’t your experience, right? You embraced that way of expressing yourself, without judgment.

Tsherin Sherpa: Yeah, it was all new to me. And it was exciting. I wanted to document that in my work. I was also really inspired by a lot of Zen masters’ books. There’s always a bit of humor, even in sadness, or in joy. That inspired me too. I wanted my work to have some of that lightness, some humor. I wanted people to smile when they saw it.

I wanted my work to have some of that lightness, some humor. I wanted people to smile when they saw it.

Scott Snibbe: Yeah, and it comes through. There’s so much humor in your work.

Tsherin Sherpa: Things from the Himalayan region have been scattered around the world, in museums and private collections. And there’s been a lot of talk in Nepal and India about repatriation. Some of these objects were sold on the black market.

Scott Snibbe: It’s still a big issue.

Tsherin Sherpa: I was looking at it from two perspectives. One was that loss, and the other was what I was observing among Himalayan people, especially in the US. I would see families—nuclear families, parents who had come together and now had a child—and they were trying to instill some of the tradition, language, and culture into their children. Teaching them to speak Nepali or Tibetan. It’s just a fragment of the whole. It’s not complete, but it still functions.

Scott Snibbe: What you’re describing is actually a key concept in both Buddhist and Hindu spirituality—that the whole is in the fragment. There’s that famous phrase from the Avatamsaka Sutra, right? The universe in a single atom.

The universe in a single atom.

Or in Hinduism, Indra’s net—all of reality made of these interconnected jewels, each one reflecting the entire cosmos.

So in these last couple of images… Vajrayana Buddhist imagery includes a lot of sexuality. In one piece, there’s an erect blue penis, and in another, part of a sexual union between deities. There’s symbolism in that, like the union of form and emptiness, or method and wisdom. It represents the qualities needed for enlightenment.

But you’re saying you’re taking away the symbolism?

Tsherin Sherpa: Yeah.

Sexual imagery in Buddhist art

Scott Snibbe: So how should the audience approach this imagery—especially the charged sexual imagery found in Vajrayana Buddhism? Did you have a specific intention, or were you more open to how people might interpret it?

Tsherin Sherpa: It wasn’t intentional. It’s an open canvas—kind of like how I started my practice. It was completely empty. There was no “this is how I should approach my work.” I felt it should be open-ended, so people could come to it and take snippets, and make something of it themselves.

I always give the example of a feature film versus a documentary. A feature film has a narrative, but a documentary has all these fragments. It’s up to the viewer to create the story in their own head.

Scott Snibbe: That’s a very open and courageous way of approaching it. I think it’s different from how a lot of contemporary artists work. Many of us tend to over-explain what we’re doing. But honestly, when I’ve made things, I often learn more about them afterward—just by looking at them over time or by hearing what others see in them. To say from the start that you’re open to that process, I think that’s pretty rare among artists.

Creating art out of tragedy

Tsherin Sherpa: In 2015, I was here in Nepal, right after the earthquake. Once I’d set up my studio in Kathmandu, I used to go for walks in the morning, and I’d hear this clanking sound, hammering on copper.

I discovered this artist, a traditional repoussé artist, who made mandalas for prayer. We became friends, and eventually, he shared how difficult it was for him to survive as a traditional artist in Nepal. Visitors often can’t tell the difference between high-quality work and cheap knockoffs. He was incredibly skilled, really high-level craftsmanship. But he told me he was at a point where he might leave the work altogether and go to Malaysia for manual labor.

Scott Snibbe: That’s heartbreaking.

Tsherin Sherpa: Yeah. It takes 20, 25 years to build up that level of skill, and just like that, it could be gone. I told him, maybe there’s a way you can keep doing this. Let’s brainstorm. I had never done sculpture before, but I suggested we collaborate. I’d come up with the designs, and he’d bring them to life. Then we could show the work in exhibitions.

He didn’t know what an exhibition was. He didn’t know what a gallery or museum was. He was only used to making things for tourists. But he said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So once we started working together, I had this idea to create a piece about the earthquake. I called it Wish-Fulfilling Tree. The shape reminded me a little of a Christmas tree.

I started collecting objects from homes that had been destroyed in the earthquake and placed them at the base of the sculpture—to commemorate the people who had died, and those who had lost so much. At the exhibition, we had pieces of paper where people could write their wishes. We inserted them into the mandala, and at the end of the show, we burned them—symbolically sending those wishes out into the universe.

Then the Rubin Museum invited me to show the piece, and they eventually acquired it. I told them it was important that they include the name of the artist who collaborated with me, so it could benefit him too. He started sharing the piece on Facebook and Instagram, showing it to his community. And I’m so happy he didn’t have to give up his practice.

We’re still connected on social media, and that experience really opened my eyes again. I thought, wow, we have so many skill sets here in Nepal—how do we preserve this? That first collaboration led me to start working with other traditional practices. I began collaborating with bronze artists to make the spirit figures into sculptures. We worked with a foundry in Patan—amazing craftsmanship there. And that became another way for me to introduce the world to the range of traditional art forms we have in Nepal.

Gender fluidity and sensuality

Scott Snibbe: And these are some of the pieces you’re really well known for. They’re quite provocative. You’ve got these spirit figures with very Western, gender-fluid body types—one’s blowing a big bubble, wearing gold underwear—with the traditional face of a spirit or deity. Gender is obviously a big topic today—but it’s also a very old topic. The idea of embracing two genders in one being is important. In Buddhism, femininity is often equated with emptiness, and masculinity with compassion or energy.

In Buddhism, femininity is often equated with emptiness, and masculinity with compassion or energy.

Can you talk about that? Because your figures project a kind of gender ambiguity, a very contemporary take. I imagine these works resonate deeply with people who identify as gay, transgender, and so on.

Tsherin Sherpa: I think so, but honestly, it wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t even thinking about that consciously. I’ve had many friends who view themselves differently, and having lived in San Francisco for more than 25 years—a very open-minded environment—it was just part of life. Even here in Nepal, gender fluidity is actually very common in some ways.

But that wasn’t my starting point. I just wanted the body of the spirit to be very sensual—something that’s attractive—but not clearly male or female.

Scott Snibbe: Well, the pieces say so many things. In Tibetan and Himalayan devotional art, sensuality isn’t something to be embarrassed about. It’s considered pure. In fact, it’s seen as essential to spiritual development—embracing sensuality and sexuality as part of becoming enlightened, and becoming a full human being.

In Tibetan and Himalayan devotional art, sensuality isn’t something to be embarrassed about. It’s considered pure. In fact, it’s seen as essential to spiritual development.

This is one piece I’ve seen at the Rubin Museum—it’s like a hundred or more bronze hands, all intertwined. It feels very connected to Western surrealism: fragments of the unconscious coming together.

Tsherin Sherpa: I first created that as a painting. At that time, I couldn’t really be vocal. I couldn’t articulate or find the right terms to talk about the work or even express myself. I became more introverted. Everything was bottled up, and I wondered—how do I express this? That’s when I created a piece I titled Muted Expression.

In Buddhism, hand gestures—or mudras—carry different meanings. In my piece, I brought all those mudras together in one sculpture, and they sort of cancel each other out. It becomes white noise. There’s no sound, but visually, you can feel something like sound when you look at it.

Scott Snibbe: When I look at that piece, it reminds me of the idea of being tongue-tied—but in this case, it’s more like being hand-tied. Hands all bound together. In many ways, Western surrealism is one of the most psychologically accurate forms of art. It conveys our inner reality more effectively than many other Western styles. These images—fragmented, grotesque, surreal—they really tap into some deep inner experience.

Criticism about Tsherin Sherpa’s artwork

Scott Snibbe: I had one last question for you before we wrap up. You’re working in a very sensitive space—religious imagery, sexual imagery, the cultural tensions between East and West, the Himalayan diaspora. Have you received criticism from traditionalists in Nepal, Tibet, or even in the West?

Tsherin Sherpa: I’ve been very fortunate. Many people have been supportive. There’s been very little criticism—though now and then, it does come up. But I think most people understand that I’m coming from a different point of view. They don’t see the works as religious. These are secular pieces that speak to issues we face today.

I don’t call them thangkas or sacred objects. The technique and the imagery I borrow are from thangka painting, which is obviously religious—but I’m not deconstructing what already exists. I’m creating something entirely new using those elements.

The technique and the imagery I borrow are from thangka painting, which is obviously religious—but I’m not deconstructing what already exists. I’m creating something entirely new using those elements.

Scott Snibbe: Well, Tsherin Sherpa, I’m so thrilled to have had this conversation with you. It’s a real gift, because your work speaks for itself. You don’t have to say a word about it—and yet it still communicates so powerfully. But I’m very grateful that you did take the time to share your perspective, your words, and your journey.

You’ve become not just one of the most successful Himalayan artists, but one of the most successful contemporary artists in the world. I rejoice in all the fantastic work you do. Thank you so much.

Tsherin Sherpa: Thank you, Scott. Thank you for this opportunity.

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