DINTER FINE ART is pleased to announce an exhibition featuring new work by the New York-based Tibetan artists Tenzing Rigdol and Palden Weinreb, presented in association with Fabio Rossi of Rossi & Rossi, London.

This exhibition reflects an evergrowing contemporary tendency towards East meets West (or more accurately West meets East). As technological advances in global communication extend the reach of cultural exchange, it is no longer possible to live in true isolation. Representative of the oldest “modern” culture on earth, contemporary Asia revisits its heritage and returns with new takes and spins on its ancient traditions. Without letting go of their roots both Tenzing Rigdol and Palden Weinreb, each in his own way, transport their inheritance to modern times and into contemporary life.

Born in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tenzing Rigdol immigrated with his family to the USA. In 2001 Rigdol studied Tibetan Sand Painting, Butter Sculpture and Buddhist philosophy during a stay at the Shakar Choten Monastery in Nepal. While there he acquired a degree in traditional Tibetan Thangka painting. Rigdol also holds a BFA and BA from the University of Colorado, Denver (2005). In his paintings and works on paper Rigdol playfully deconstructs and re-organizes traditional depictions of the Buddha. He succeeds in transferring this ancient traditional manner of representation into a modern idiom, due to his thorough understanding of its underlying meaning. Not only are the pictures visually stunning, both in color and technique, they also embody a fusion of East and West as, for example, when Rigdol combines traditional methods of fabric appliqué to stylize elements of the composition, with oil on canvas or pastel on paper. His work is included in the traveling exhibition “The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama”, currently on view at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, through March 16: previous venues include the Rubin Museum of Art, New York; as well he has participated in several exhibitions presented by Rossi & Rossi in London and New York.

Palden Weinreb, of mixed Tibetan heritage, perhaps more closely reflects an “East meets West” approach in his work. Born and raised in New York City, educated in upstate New York (Skidmore College, 2004), Weinreb’s spare pencil on paper works do not immediately call Asian art to mind. The fusion hints at more home-grown references, such as to minimalism, and other ascetic artistic impulses. The rigorously methodical execution of his sublimely abstract ideas recall the fundamentals of Thangka paintings as well. Sometimes he reaches into the “grid” to form a Buddha depiction, as in his series of monoprints. More often it is in the shapes and shadings of pencil lines, built up around empty space, fanning out, spreading, or wiggling in some outward or inward bound direction, that we see the pared down manifestation of spiritual simplicity. These works invite contemplation and meditative states, slowing time and focusing attention, stepping outside the rushing stream of contemporary urban life. Weinreb has participated in several exhibitions with Rossi & Rossi, in London and New York; as well as the “Flag Project” at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, organized by Kiki Smith and Arlene Shechet.