OUR STORY

Three generations of hands, painting the same deities

A gallery, an artist cooperative and a school in Kathmandu, keeping a living tradition alive by practising it.

HOW A THANGKA IS MADE

Six stages, none of them quick

Canvas and ground

Cotton is stretched, sized with a paste of chalk and glue, then burnished for days until it takes a line cleanly.
The grid

Iconometric proportion is drawn first — the deity’s measurements are fixed by text, not by taste. Everything else follows this.
Drawing

The full composition in pencil: central figure, retinue, landscape, clouds. Nothing is coloured until the drawing is right.
Stone colour

Ground mineral and earth pigment, laid flat from background to foreground. Weeks of patient filling before anything looks alive.
Shading and line

Wet shading for depth, then the fine black outline that gives a thangka its precision. The hardest stage to teach.
Gold and the face

24k gold for ornament and thrones, burnished with agate. The eyes are painted last, by the most senior hand in the room.

HOW WE WORK

Honest description

Daylight photographs, no colour correction. Every piece is hand-painted, so yours will differ from the picture — we would rather say so than surprise you.
One painting, one artist

No assembly lines and no shared canvases. The hand that starts a Thangka is the hand that finishes it.

COME AND SEE

You are welcome to watch a thangka being painted. Message us before you come so somebody is free to show you around.