展览预告 | 梵韵丹青——热贡娘本唐卡艺术展

Thangka, a transliteration of its Tibetan name, is a distinctive form of traditional Chinese painting. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, it has served as a vital artistic medium through which civilizations across different regions have encountered, exchanged, and enriched one another, connecting the Tibetan Plateau with inland China and fostering cultural dialogue between China and South and Central Asia. With a history spanning centuries, Thangka has developed into a sophisticated artistic system and a unique visual language. Through its rigorous formal structures, refined use of line, vibrant color expressions, and rich iconographic traditions, Thangka embodies historical memory, philosophical ideas, aesthetic ideals, and spiritual aspirations. Its subjects extend far beyond religious beliefs. They encompass history, astronomy, calendrical studies, medicine, architecture, folk customs, and many other fields, making it an important cultural heritage created, inherited, and developed collectively by the diverse ethnic communities of China. In 2006, “Tibetan Thangka” was inscribed on the First Batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage List. In 2009, Thangka, together with Regong Arts, including duixiu (embroidery appliqué), painted sculptures, and copper sculptures, was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

As a vital intangible cultural heritage of the Regong region, Regong Thangka is closely intertwined with its unique natural and social ecosystems. It is a living cultural form that has continuously evolved with social changes over time, possessing a sustainable cultural-ecological structure. For centuries, local monks and painters have drawn extensively from diverse regional artistic traditions, enriching Chinese art with their exquisite lines and brilliant colors.

Mr. Niangben is a Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts and a National-level Representative Inheritor of the Intangible Cultural Heritage project “Regong Arts.” While remaining rooted in the traditional style of Regong art, he has persistently explored and boldly innovated, drawing upon the traditional iconographic systems and color palettes of Thangka and synthesizing the gold-ground painting techniques of Regong Thangka with the fine brushwork of Chinese gongbi painting. His works are characterized by rigorous composition, graceful lines, resplendent colors, and meticulous details, with figures that are vivid and expressive, graceful and harmonious. They embody both the solemn splendor of Thangka art and a distinctive aesthetic sensibility.

Rooted in the traditional techniques of Black Thangka, Colored Thangka, Red Thangka, and Gold Thangka, his artistic practice embraces contemporary aesthetic sensibilities, breathing new life into this ancient art form. Over the years, Niangben has actively advanced the research, transmission, and dissemination of Regong Thangka. Guided by a spirit of compassion and a commitment to benefiting society, he has established art academies and taken in orphans, embodying the preservation and development of traditional culture through both his artistic exploration and his life's work. His practice demonstrates the creative vitality of intangible cultural heritage inheritors in contemporary society. Heritage transmission, in his view, is not a simple replication of tradition but rather a creative transformation and innovative development that responds to the needs of the present while honoring the historical lineage and cultural DNA of the past.

This exhibition brings together a selection of Mr. Niangben’s representative works, presenting the diverse artistic forms and classic iconography of Regong Thangka. These pieces reflect both the refined essence of traditional Thangka craftsmanship and the innovative expressions shaped by contemporary aesthetics. As a shared cultural heritage of humanity, Thangka has traveled from the snowy plateau to Shenzhen, a coastal city on the South China Sea. Mediated by intangible cultural heritage, this cultural dialogue across thousands of kilometers fosters living transmission and sustains the roots of ethnic culture. It promotes the dissemination and exchange of China's outstanding traditional culture, and reveals to the world the inclusive and symbiotic spirit of Chinese civilization.

May every visitor, in every stroke of the brush and every glint of gold, perceive the power of the spirit and the warmth of art, and experience the enduring and ever-evolving beauty of Regong Thangka as a living tradition through the passage of time.

Dr. Zhu Jianjun

Director, Shenzhen Art Museum

August 2026

Niangben was born on February 17, 1971 in Wutun Shangzhuang, Longwu Town, Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. At the age of 12, he began his artistic training under Master Xiawucailang, a Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. He has since devoted himself to Thangka painting within the “Regong Arts” tradition and to the study of Tibetan Buddhist art, becoming one of the most representative figures in Regong Thangka.

He currently serves as Dean of the Qinghai Huangnan Regong Art Academy, a member of the 13th Qinghai Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Vice Chairman of the Committee on Culture, Historical Data and Studies of the 13th Qinghai Provincial Committee of the CPPCC, Vice President of the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association, and Dean of the Institute of Intangible Cultural Heritage at Qinghai Normal University.

From 2014 to 2019, he held solo Thangka exhibitions at multiple major art institutions across China, including the National Museum of China, the National Art Museum of China, the China Art Museum (Shanghai), the Prince Kung's Palace Museum in Beijing, and the Guan Shanyue Art Museum in Shenzhen. He has traveled to more than 20 countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, to present the art of Regong Thangka to the world, earning international acclaim and high praise. His works have received numerous awards at the national and provincial levels and are held in major museum collections across China, including the National Museum of China, the Chinese National Academy of Arts, the National Art Museum of China, and the China National Arts and Crafts Museum, as well as in the collections of the General Office of the State Council, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, and the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region.

Niangben has received a number of honorary titles, including National Model Worker, National Outstanding Individual in Employment and Entrepreneurship, National Advanced Individual in Poverty Alleviation, the Seventh National Model Leader of Rural Youth in Poverty Alleviation and Development, National Model Worker of the Light Industry Sector, as well as Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts and National-level Representative Inheritor of the Intangible Cultural Heritage project “Regong Arts.”

In August 2006, Niangben founded the Qinghai Huangnan Regong Art Academy. The Academy is dedicated to the preservation, transmission, and revitalization of the national-level intangible cultural heritage project “Regong Arts.” It has been designated as a National Cultural Industry Demonstration Base, a National-level Demonstration Base for the Productive Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and a Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Internship Base. Operating under an “Academy + Households + Base” model, the Academy has long provided free room and board and Thangka training to children from impoverished families and orphans, training over 2,000 apprentices to date.