Rockets Meet Thangka: The New Wave of Bhutanese Art
These recent close-up images come from an American Vogue photo shoot held in Bhutan. They display a style far removed from traditional Bhutanese aesthetics—clear evidence that the country today is experiencing significant change. Phurba Namgay remarked, "My route from Bhutan to Tennessee in the U.S. mirrors the leap from ancient times to the present. Along the way, I painted what I witnessed—how many hidden forces exist that human science has yet to observe or comprehend? It is wise not to take oneself too seriously, since there is always something greater to honor.
Born in 1963 in Trongsa, central Bhutan, Phurba Namgay is a trained Bhutanese Buddhist painter who, as a child, was originally meant to become a monk. He has pioneered a groundbreaking new form of Bhutanese art by merging the most ancient thangka traditions with contemporary Western art. His work remains deeply tied to Bhutanese culture and religious practices. This raises the question: does even a profoundly traditional region have modern art? That is how we discovered Namgay's works.
Namgay was 13 when he started formal training in Bhutanese painting at Zorig Chusum Institute, the government’s traditional arts school in Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital, having already shown remarkable artistic talent as a child. He spent eight years there studying the 13 arts—Zorig Chusum translates as “The 13 Arts”—and then served as an apprentice to a well-known master painter, eventually becoming a professional artist himself. Earlier, his uncle, a lama, had instructed him in Tibetan (Chöke), Buddhist philosophy, and rituals.
Namgay currently works in his studio in Thimphu with three or four apprentices, who learn to paint thangkas and temple murals while integrating his continually developing contemporary artistic vision. Before that, he spent eight years painting murals for monasteries and temples under the Kingdom of Bhutan, and his art is still visible in the temples at Punakha and Paro Tsang Chuiko. In 1990, he rejoined the Zorig Chusum Institute of Traditional Arts as a professor of thangka painting and taught there until 2001.
Since 2008, Namgay has spent part of every year in the United States. He created his own unique pigments from materials ranging from natural mineral extracts to 24-karat gold, and he also tried making his own brushes. Namgay says, "The finest brushes are made from hair clipped from the ears of yaks in summer." Sometimes he even uses fur from his own cat. He laughs, "My brushes are very small, so I don't need much hair. That's why my cat doesn't mind.
His new works fuse Buddhist imagery and mythical creatures—dragons, tigers, snow lions, lotuses, and demons—with ordinary pedestrians. Mystical and whimsical imagery is interpreted prophetically through visual narratives. For instance, one painting depicts a fierce tiger striding calmly across a crosswalk. Having received a fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, he focused on studying elements of Western art. In his artistic practice, he strongly identifies with photorealism and hyperrealism.
According to Namgay, Bhutan is covered in these artistic symbols: they appear on flags, rocks, building exteriors, and houses. The images feature sacred emblems, mythical animals, Buddhist motifs, and prayers. These visual markers help direct how Bhutanese people conduct their lives. For instance, the tiger stands for power and protection, the lotus signifies enlightenment and wisdom, and the windhorse gallops into the void bearing prayers.
Namgay's works have so far been exhibited in New York, Amsterdam, Boulder, Nashville, London, New Delhi, and Copenhagen. Numerous symbols placed in ordinary surroundings encourage people to pause and reflect, giving them the power of awareness, compassion, and the enlightenment that comes from their cultural wisdom.
Namgay’s trips to America left him inspired and energized. Though he continued to work as a traditional Buddhist thangka painter, he welcomed the creative liberty that contemporary Western art provides. His pieces now belong to the permanent collections of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, the Tennessee State Museum, and the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, as well as to private collections in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.
Namgay's latest pieces use those same symbols to trace his route from the Himalayas to the West. Several years ago, an American friend gave him a book about NASA and the U.S. space program, which sparked his fascination with rockets. He saw these rockets as modern parables, unlike the "Bhutanese dragons" he had grown up with. Curiously, many people in his village doubted that the first American moon landing had really occurred. "Just like Americans don't believe in dragons," he said with a laugh.
While creating traditional thangkas, he also wove rocket motifs into his artwork, giving birth to the "Rocket Series." His particular attachment is to Apollo 13—"because thirteen is my lucky number," he said, "and in Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of the sun and light." In that series, dragons and Apollo 13 appear together as the spacecraft journeys through a celestial landscape drawn in thangka style. A massive lotus propels several rockets, and a Starbucks coffee cup is even turned into a vessel lifting off into space.
Within his surrealism series, Namgay delves into both ancient and modern realms. These pieces fuse contemporary surrealist approaches with traditional Bhutanese imagery. "Roads, traveling vehicles, dragons, rockets, horsemen, tigers..."—such symbols appear throughout Namgay's work. Along a cloud-dappled path, an arrow drifts as though animated by its own will. Like a utopian vision, these combinations stay with the viewer, floating through the emptiness where Western and Eastern traditions meet.
Snow leopards, found in the Bhutan Himalayas and the Tibetan region, are currently endangered. In 2013, Namgay took part in the Jomolhari Snow Leopard Conservation Project. To support this conservation effort, his painting "Snow Leopard" was sold. Notably, even as he explores the contemporary art world, Namgay still creates temple murals and the most traditional thangkas. Although his work is grounded in centuries of human artistic tradition, Namgay is also a daring innovator.
He said, "How many unseen forces remain unnoticed or unrecognized by human science? My path from Bhutan to Tennessee parallels the progression from antiquity to the present. I painted the scenes I observed along that route. It is wise to avoid excessive self-importance, since something greater always deserves our reverence.