BOUNDLESS: Contemporary Tibetan Artists at Home & Abroad

Fig. 17:
Lhasa Train
2006
Acrylic and mineral pigments on handmade paper mounted on canvas
60 x 130 cm.

On loan from the Lois and Ian Alsop private collection

This work, like Dedron's nearby painting Train, is a response to the opening of the Lhasa-Qinghai railway in 2006. The first direct route between inland China and central Tibet, the railway brought an influx of domestic and international tourists to central Tibet. From Coca-Cola billboards next to snow-capped mountains, and People's Liberation Army soldiers on elephants riding past Tibetan monks holding balloons, Gade's images capture the cacophony of cultures and belief systems in central Tibet today. "My generation has grown up with thangka painting, martial arts, Hollywood movies, Mickey Mouse, Charlie Chaplin, rock 'n' roll, and McDonalds," he has said. "We still don't know where the spiritual homeland is - New York, Beijing, or Lhasa. We wear jeans and T-shirts and when we drink a Budweiser it is only occasionally that we talk about 'Buddhahood.'"