Tibetan artist promotes art, harmony in community

A Tibetan Thangka artist has been promoting the painting art as well as unity and harmony in a community in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

Lhamo, 50, comes from the county of Seda under Sichuan's Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture. He is a professional painter of Thangka.

Thangka is a Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting on cotton or silk with mineral and organic pigments derived from coral, agate, sapphire, pearl, gold and others so that the color stays for centuries. The paintings date back to the 10th century and typically depict Buddhist deities.

In 2006, China listed Thangka as a national cultural heritage, a status that has since given the art a strong boost. UNESCO included Thangka paintings, murals, patchwork crafts and sculptures as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Lhamo is a state-level inheritor of a school of Thangka painting. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Lhamo is currently teaching students about Thangka online.

In 2004, Lhamo took more than 10 Tibetan students to the Jifu Community in the city of Chengdu, the provincial capital. The community had more than 30,000 residents, with more than 1,000 residents of 11 ethnic minorities, including Tibetan, Qiang, Hui and Mongolian ethnic groups.