Huihan Liu Journeys to Tibet
A Moment in Time
Journeys to Tibet
Tibet has a long and rich history as a flourishing center of Buddhism and learning, as well as periods where it was a strong regional military power. However, despite this history, and due to its remoteness and isolation, it remained until the mid-20th century a “Forbidden Land” to Westerners, a mythical Utopia far above the troubles of the modern age. Today, the lands of Tibet’s historical kingdoms encompass not only the actual territories of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, but also parts of neighboring Gansu province, Qinghai province, Sichuan province and Yunnan province.
When I first visited Tibet in 1987, travel was difficult and slow via unpaved dirt roads. I was fast captivated by its splendid landscape and the hospitable people who live on the roof of the world! Having grown up in faraway southern China, I never imagined that I would someday have the chance to explore Tibet. The mark that first encounter left would lead me to take seven more trips to Tibet during the following twenty-nine years.
Over time, I have seen many different parts of Tibet: from the northern Qinghai-Tibet plateau to the western Himalayan range, from a nomad’s tent in a pasture to the Potala Palace and Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa, and from Tibet’s northern gateway of Mt. Tanggula to Tibet’s southern gate of Rongpu on the foothills of Mt. Everest.
My passion for Tibet has made me strive to paint Tibetan subjects for many years. I am fascinated by the chance to paint whatever I can see. I can’t tell whether I go back in order to paint, or I paint in order to go back. At the same time, I feel like I have don’t have time to lose, as the modern world’s impact on traditional Tibetan culture grows year by year.
I am very excited and honored that Trailside Galleries is hosting this special showcase for me. With much appreciation, I hope that each painting in the show will faithfully represent a moment in time as seen through my eyes, and that each painting will help preserve the beauty of Tibetan culture today and for future generations.
HUIHAN LIU
PILGRIMS MAKING WISHES, LHASA
oil on linen
30 x 24 in
(76.2h x 60.96w cm)
$21,000
As Lhasa is the most holy place for Tibetans, and prayer is a daily routine, many people can be
seen every dawn performing their religious rituals. Here, they count a total of 108 beads on a rosary string in a clockwise manner on their hands, before raising their hands above their heads, then pushing forward and stretching the whole length of their bodies on the ground.
Continuing, they rise and begin the process again until they have completed the cycle one thousand times , the number necessary to achieve the first initiation or the first step towards enlightment.
I was amazed by their meditative concentration and hand gestures. A worn prayer flag hanging behind the stone wall lent beautiful emotional impact to the piece.
MORNING INCENSE AT JOHANG MONASTERY, LHASA
The Jokhang was founded during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo. The oldest part of the temple was built in 652. The last renovation was done in 1610 by the fifth Dalai Lama, following the Gorkha Tibetan War in 1792, and it become an exclusive place of worship for the Tibetans. During the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, there was no worship for a decade. In 2000, the Jokhang became a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an extension of Potala Palace. The temple is considered the “spiritual heart of the city” and is the most sacred in Tibet. Barkhor, the market square in central Lhasa, has a walkway for pilgrims to walk around the temple which takes about 20 minutes.
On a summer morning in 2004, before sunrise, I walked down to the Barkhor square. I witnessed pilgrims already circling around Jokhang Temple. A fire flared up from a burning
stove on the square, billowing a whitish cloud of smoke through the air which reached the
Dharma wheel and its flanking twin deer statues that crown the pediment of the golden roofs. The backlit light against the beautiful silhouetted shape of architecture was the inspiration for this piece.
HUIHAN LIU
MORNING INCENSE AT JOHANG MONASTERY, LHASA
oil on canvas
24 x 36 in
(60.96h x 91.44w cm)
$19,000
ANTICIPATION
In October of 2004, on the road from Qinghai to Lhasa, after crossing Mt. Tanggula pass into Tibet Autonomous Region, I took a short lunch break near the rustic town of Nagqu. I encountered a woman holding a baby in the front door of the house. What drew me were her facial expressions and the baby’s curious gesture. A cold, breezy and greyish day reflected on their skin tone and contrasted with the mud-cracked wall of the building.
HUIHAN LIU
ANTICIPATION
oil on linen
30 x 15 in
(76.2h x 38.1w cm)
$15,000
In 2004, I visited the Shigatse-Tashilhumpo Monastery. Founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama, this historic and culturally important monastery is located in Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet. I saw these pilgrims casually sitting on the steps outside of the main chanting hall. Their worn clothing suggests they came a long way to the holy place for making wishes. To make this pilgrimage, these people must have traveled more than a thousand kilometers on foot. The arduous journey can be seen in their tired posture and fatigued faces . Their traditional garments all have different designs that reveal their diverse origins; some from the pasture, some from villages and others from small towns. This piece is about individual characters coming together to form a unity.
HUIHAN LIU
GATHERING
oil on linen
36 x 42 in
(91.44h x 106.68w cm)
$42,000
ON THE ROAD
I documented this scene during my first Tibetan journey to Lhasa city in the spring of 1987, which was about ten years after the Cultural Revolution in China. During the Revolution, Tibet had remained a forbidden snow covered landscape for most Westerners.
During the time I visited, Lhasa was quite a peaceful, though rustic city. Villagers in Tibet customarily traveled together in caravans which was a popular mode of transportation on the dirt roads. I encountered these pilgrims having a break on the road, making a meal of Tibetan tea and tsampa (roasted barley flour). Their belongings, worn and torn, suggest that they must have a crossed almost the entire country on foot to reach the holy city.
HUIHAN LIU
ON THE ROAD
oil on linen
24 x 30 in
(60.96h x 76.2w cm)
$21,000
JOYFUL MOMENT
This piece captures a moment from a trip to Namco Lake in Northern Tibet in 2004. Namco Lake is a mountain lake in the county of Nagqu, about 15,479 feet above sea level. I arrived late and met these nomad families in the evening light.
HUIHAN LIU
JOYFUL MOMENT
oil on canvas
11 x 14 in
(27.94h x 35.56w cm)
$4,800
Huihan Liu
Huihan Liu was born in Guangzhou, China in 1952. He was trained at the prestigious Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, receiving a BFA in 1975. After graduation, he taught at the academy for several years before continuing with the graduate program. In 1987, he immigrated to the United States, settling in the San Francisco Bay area. Here he continued his art studies at the Academy of Art College, earning a Masters of Fine Art in 1993.
Like many of his contemporaries, Huihan was highly influenced by the academic French and Russian schools. After the death of Dictator Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) in 1976, whose Cultural Revolution had barred Western influences and stifled creative expression for years, came the real birth of Contemporary Chinese art. With the end of the Cultural Revolution , many Chinese artists such as Huihan finally had access to Western books and magazines and yearned to travel abroad and experience western culture.
Hiuhan has since spent the last thirty years as a painter, illustrator and teacher. His wide range of subject matter includes figurative, still life and landscape pieces. His figurative paintings often depict the Tibetan people and their lifestyles and for this particular show, he has produced a body of work solely focused on Tibetan subject matter. Over the past 30 years, Huihan has travelled extensively to Tibet, his paintings providing a sensitive chronicle of the many cultural changes that have taken place in the region. He considers his paintings impressionistic realism; a combination of primary field study and reference, compositional arrangement, color design, accurate detail and spontaneous brushwork and texture.
His wife, Weizhen Liang, is also a successful painter in her own right and is a member of the American Impressionists Society and an artist member of the California Art Club. Together they have traveled the world seeking inspiration for their studio paintings.
Huihan Liu is a member of the California Art Club and Oil Painters of America, which in 2016 awarded him the Gold Medal for the Master Signature Division. He teaches workshops around the country at venues that include the Fechin Art Workshops and the Fredericksburg Artists School.
Huihan Liu: Journeys to Tibet
August 1 - 31, Open House: August 4, 5-8pm
Special Guest Speaker, Dr. David Shlim
Trailside Galleries
Jackson, Wyoming
Title of Talk: Tibet's Gift to the World
Presented by Dr. David Shlim
Physician, consultant, author, speaker, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism
What do we think of when we think of Tibet? A mysterious Shangri-La? Where did the word Shangri-La originate? Who are the people who lived in almost total isolation from the rest of the world until mid-way through the twentieth century? What do they believe in, and why are the spiritual teachers of Tibet becoming so popular in the West? What is it about the Tibetan people themselves that is so attractive to outsiders?
David R Shlim MD first traveled to Nepal in 1979, and made his first trip to Tibet in 1987. He subsequently lived in Kathmandu for fifteen years, where he ran the world’s busiest destination travel medicine clinic, and offered free medical care to Tibetan refugees. He is the author of over forty-five original research papers, and has served as the President of the International Society of Travel Medicine. He practices travel medicine at his office in Wilson, and has taught Tibetan Buddhism for the last sixteen years in Jackson. He regularly hosts Tibetan lamas who come to Jackson Hole to teach. He is the co-author, with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of the book Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama and an American Doctor on How to Provide Care with Compassion and Wisdom.