Scanning through Weibo this morning, I came across a selection of images from Nortse, just one of the big names on the Tibetan Contemporary Art scene. Here’s a super short blog on his work.

Nortse (birth name: Norbu Tsering) was born in Lhasa in 1963, and has studied at a number of art schools, among which include Tibet University (Lhasa), Central Arts Academy (Beijing), as well as academies in Guangzhou and Tianjin. He has exhibited in solo and exhibitions in several countries to date, including China, the US, Germany and the UK (see a short video of one of Nortse’s recent exhibitions here).

Working mostly in photography and painting, Nortse’s work addresses some of the most pressing issues affecting not only Tibetans but the world at large, including climate change, environmental degradation, alcoholism, conflicts between tradition and modern culture, linguistic anxieties, memory, and also identity.

Commenting on sources of inspiration for his work, Nortse once stated that “in the midst all these various changes in society, I feel I have been a human guinea pig, part of an ongoing experiment.”