The Painted Mantra

Tibetan calligraphy can be considered a contemplative practice of Dharma art, a means for the practitioner to attain mindfulness or even transcendence. Join calligrapher and artist Tashi Mannox as he works with audiences to explore the sacred form of the characters involved in Tibetan visualization practices.

The program includes a lecture, demonstration, and workshop. No experience necessary.

About the Artist

Tashi Mannox’s name embodies both the Eastern and Western artistic disciplines in his thirty-five-year journey as a painter and calligrapher. Born British to the family name Mannox, he received the first name Tashi when he became a Buddhist monk of the Tibetan Kagyu order at the age of twenty-two, shortly after earning a BA [Hons] degree in Fine Art..

For the next seventeen years as a monk, he apprenticed under the direction of a master of Tibetan art, the late Sherab Palden Beru. Part of Tashi’s training was in the elaborate art of temple decoration, which is traditionally a hub for Tibetan art and its deep symbolism. During his years in the monastery, Tashi entered a four-year Buddhist retreat, where he worked as a scribe, meticulously copying ancient Tibetan manuscripts. This highly disciplined training laid a firm foundation for his proficiency in the multiple forms of Tibetan calligraphy.

Since laying down his monastic robes in 2000, Tashi has built on his disciplined training and arising spiritual awareness to produce collections of iconographic masterpieces that reveal powerful, sacred themes through the majestic images of Tibetan Buddhist iconography. He is now recognized as one of the world’s foremost contemporary Tibetan calligraphy artists, exhibiting internationally in London, Moscow, New York, Los Angeles, Sharjah, and with up-and-coming exhibitions in Bhutan and Brazil.

In recent years, Tashi has held numerous workshops, courses, and retreats worldwide, instructing in the art of Tibetan calligraphy and Dharma art with its all-important meditative approach to all creativity.